The Matrix: Legacy
by Dark Puck
Summary: UNDERGOING EDITING! A post-Revolutions story about a girl lost in her missing sister's shadow, as well as the new role the Exiles play in the newest Cycle. Abel-OC pairing, chapter 34 reposted.
1. Sister

**The Matrix: Legacy**

**Prologue**

**Sister**

****

* * *

Carrie Davidson was only fifteen when she vanished without a trace. Her mother was hysterical, her father convinced that she'd been murdered. A week after her disappearance, "government" agents paid the girl's parents a visit. Neither of the Davidsons knew that these agents were actually Agents of the Matrix, making sure that the young hacker Trinity hadn't been in contact with her family.

Routine measures were taken to ensure that the parental figures wouldn't be released, including the bugging of both Mr. and Mrs. Davidson. When the woman gave birth eight months later, the child underwent a quick check to ensure that the bug had not adversely affected its development – or rather, created an anomaly in the child.

It hadn't, and the system promptly forgot about the child and indeed, the Davidson family, as Trinity never showed any inclination to free her parents' minds. However, "Carrie's" disappearance had an adverse affect on Mrs. Davidson, who would have named her second daughter Carrie had Mr. Davidson not put his foot down and named her Morgain.

It was Morgain's misfortune to look exactly like Carrie had, and Mrs. Davidson tried her hardest to turn Morgain _into_ her vanished sister by dressing her in the same outfits Carrie had worn, forcing her to keep her black hair long, and entering her in ballet and gymnastics.

Unfortunately, even Mrs. Davidson could do nothing about the fact that her second child had been born mute. The bug _had_ affected the embryonic Morgain in two, unseen ways: in exchange for a slight alteration in the programming of her eyes, she had no voice. The system had not caught the minor anomaly in her eyes – to Morgain, those humans still connected to Matrix bore a sort of green aura, the unplugged humans had a blue one, and programs had a gold one. Of course, Morgain had no idea of what these different colours meant, so the anomaly remained with her.

As Morgain grew older, her visual similarity to her sister only grew stronger, as did her desire to escape Carrie's shadow. Mr. Davidson aided her in that regard, helping her drop the ballet class for jazz dancing. Morgain genuinely loved dancing, and got into every sort of dancing class she could.

When she was thirteen, she became friends with three older teens who went by Gunner, Horizon, and Davis. She took on an alias at their urging, deciding to call herself "Avalon". Her mother didn't like her hanging out with the trio, who ignored Mrs. Davidson's admonitions that they never see her again and took Morgain to various places in their part of the Megacity. Not all of these places were 'legal' establishments; Avalon learned quickly that Gunner worked as a mob enforcer and that both Horizon and Davis were hackers.

When she was fifteen years old, Davis disappeared. Horizon pulled a vanishing act a day later, when government Agents came around to ask them about their friend. Gunner refused to say anything, and Morgain's father threatened to call a lawyer when the girl came home in tears because she didn't know anything about why her friend had vanished.

Some months later, the three got an e-mail from him, telling them that, though he couldn't say where he was, he was happy. Horizon reappeared, this time taking pains to have a legit job so she wouldn't come under further suspicion. Gunner didn't bother; he wasn't a hacker anyway.

Morgain once heard him make reference to a 'Trinity'. When she asked, he refused to say more. He'd spare her the knowledge that Trinity was, in fact, her missing elder sister, and rumour had it that she was dead.

---------

_Attention all _Legacy_ fans: This fic has been taken down for a major edit-and-revamp. I do not know when it will be completely up; however, I will be posting each edited chapter as soon as it is finished. Most of these edits will be minor in nature; however, there will also be major changes in light of new information regarding the _Matrix _trilogy._

_Just work with me, people, and I will hopefully have the entire fic back up by Christmas – in time for its one-year-anniversary! w00t!_

_Concrit__ requested in reviews, as well as signs of intelligence. You like the story? Tell me _why_, damn it! You don't like it? Tell me why, and maybe I can work with you. Maybe not. Idiots will be treated as such._


	2. Programs

**The Matrix: Legacy**

**One**

**Programs**

* * *

Morgain slept under a tree in the park, aware of but oblivious to the girl playing near her, until she opened her eyes to see the child looking at her. The girl smiled. "Hello," she said in a slightly accented voice. "My name is Sati. Your name is Morgain. Seraph says that you cannot talk. Have you lost your voice, Morgain?"

Morgain stared at her for a long moment. Even if she could speak, she had no words for this child with the beautiful sienna hair and gold aura. Sati regarded her for a few moments, then stated, "You look like Neo's friend, but you are not her. And everyone expects you to be like her. The Oracle–"

"Sati," another accented voice interrupted. Both females looked up to see a dark-haired man in loose clothing. Like Sati, Morgain realised, he had a golden aura. "Let the girl be."

"Yes, Seraph," Sati answered before handing Morgain a doll. "Her name is Trinity. She is for you." She smiled up at the Chinese man, who smiled back affectionately, then scampered off to where some other children were playing.

Seraph offered Morgain a courteous bow. "I apologise for her rudeness. She does not yet understand what should not be said." Morgain smiled weakly, hoping he understood ASL as she signed, 'That's all right. I don't mind.'

He nodded, then turned from her to walk sedately towards Sati and her new playmates. Morgain watched him go, then turned her attention to the doll Sati had given her.

It fell from her trembling hands as Morgain stared at the face on the doll. Her face. _Carrie's_ face.

"Avalon."

Morgain looked up at the big black man towering over her, offering him a shaky smile. 'Hey, Gunner,' she signed. He sat beside her. "What's up, kiddo? You look like you've seen a ghost." She leaned against him. 'I did. Sort of.'

He frowned. "Sort of?"

She passed him the doll. 'Some kid named Sati gave me that. She knew my name and she knew I'm mute. She said that it was for me.' Gunner whistled. "It's you to a T, kid. Except you don't wear your hair like that."

'Gunner... it's Carrie.'

Gunner did a double-take. "Shit, girl, you're right. It _is_ her; she started wearing her hair like that a week before she vanished." Gunner had been Carrie's age and had shared some classes with her. For some reason, he considered it his duty to look after Morgain.

Gunner handed the doll back to her. "Don't let your ma see that. She'll have an apoplexy or somethin'."

'I know.'

Gunner gave Morgain a one-armed bear hug, and she curled up against him, resting her head against his broad shoulder. He fingered her short hair, wondering if the girl would grow it long again to avoid being caught up in her sister's shadow once more.

The enforcer heard someone approaching and surreptitiously looked over his shoulder and out of the corner of his eye to see two well-dressed men approaching where they sat. They were identical in every way, right down to their white dreadlocks, dark sunglasses, and silver trench coats.

_Enforcers_, he thought. _Wonder who they work for?_

They walked past him and Avalon, heading straight for the group of children skipping rope and the oriental man watching over them. The man turned and said something quietly to them. Both of them laughed harshly, then both drew something from their pockets. The man fell into a fighting stance, and Gunner swore.

"Stay here, Avvy," he said softly, checking to be sure he had his pair of Sig Sauer P228s. "Better yet, get under cover. This could get ugly." She nodded and scampered off. Gunner smiled slightly, then returned his attention to where the Doublemint Twins were circling the Asian man like wolves. Both lunged for him as one, but somehow he managed to block both attacks.

Gunner went around the fight, more concerned about the kids since it looked like Jet Li over there was fine on his own. Keeping a wary eye out, he tricked the kids into scattering and heading elsewhere using some persuasive words and a bribe in the form of a bag of mini-Twix he'd been hoping to enjoy himself. Only one remained after that, watching the fight. Gunner looked at her. "Why are you still here?" he demanded.

"Seraph is my guardian," she said simply.

_Seraph!? Oh, shit; I've heard of that guy!_

Gunner watched the fight with new eyes, standing slightly in front of the girl. Again, he heard approaching footsteps and turned to see another pair of men approaching. However, their target was clearly not Seraph – it was the girl.

_Shit_.

Gunner drew both of his Sigs as the approaching strangers came closer. The taller of them grinned darkly. "You don't actually think you can _hurt_ us with those, do you?"

"I think he does," the shorter man smirked, retrieving an HK USP .40 from his jacket as his companion drew a Browning. In a flash, Gunner had shifted the gun in his left hand to his right, yanked the kid behind him, and returned the extra gun to his left hand. "I'd really hate to kill in front of a kid, but if you test me I will," Gunner said calmly.

"Your bullets can't hurt them," the kid piped up. "Only silver ones can."

"... the hell?"

The shorter of the men lunged for Gunner, who calmly emptied the contents of his right-hand pistol into the man's chest, throwing him down. The taller man only grinned.

Then, to Gunner's surprise, the man he'd shot got back up, looking down at his bloody vest. "Tickles," he said, then looked the startled man straight in the eyes. "The cost of a new one comes right from your bank account... though you won't be alive to know that," he smirked, then he and his partner opened fire.

Gunner was already moving, however, throwing himself and the girl down. He winced as bullets thudded into the bullet-proof vest he'd taken to wearing, bruising his back. He rolled over and planted a bullet of his own right between the short guy's eyes, throwing him down; his next two shots caught the taller man in the chest, the third in the forehead, throwing him down as well.

A strong hand caught him by the arm and helped him up. The kid was already clinging to its owner's waist, the man known as Seraph. "Come quickly. You have only angered them," he said, motioning to the stunned men on the ground. Gunner nodded, holstering his weapons and jogging after the Asian man, who had picked the kid up in order to move faster.

Gunner nearly turned back when he realised, "Hell! Avvy's still there!" Seraph caught his arm. "She is already gone," he assured the older man. Gunner hesitated, nodded, and continued.

"Seraph, they are catching up!" the kid, who was looking back over her guardian's shoulder, cried. "The hell they are," Gunner growled, reloading as he ran. "Cover me," Seraph requested as they came to a door. Gunner obeyed as behind him, the Asian took a key ring from one of his sleeves and unlocked a door. "Quickly, inside!"

Gunner walked in backwards, firing twice at the Doublemint Twins before Seraph slammed the door shut. "They have a key, Seraph," the girl said. "I know, Sati. They work for the Frenchman, after all."

Seraph had selected another key, opening a door three places down as the door they had come from started to open. "Hurry!" Gunner pushed 'Sati' through and was pushed through by Seraph, who appropriated one of his guns and fired rapidly at the oncoming Rastafarians before shutting that door as well.

---------

The Twins halted their advance as Wingless cut them off. "They escaped," Two said, sounding annoyed. "Yes, they did," One agreed in the same tone. They exchanged wordless looks, then walked out of the hallways, re-emerging into the blinding false light of the Matrix.

One looked over to where they'd left Cain and Abel to recover to see some bloody bullets and a discarded pair of sunglasses: Abel's. Of the werewolves, there was no sign. He pointed this out to Two, and both let out the same resigned sigh.

"We suppose we'll have to track them down again," Two said, and One nodded. With a vexed grunt, Two split off to the right, while One walked to the tree where the black man had come from. He searched his memory; yes, there had been another with him, a girl. His lover, perhaps?

He felt eyes on his head and looked up, straight into _her_ face.

The woman called Trinity.

Odd, she looked younger than she had that day when she and the One had walked into the restaurant. Well, perhaps she was under less stress now that the war was over.

He grinned. _Two. We won't guess who _we_ found._

_Then tell us if we won't guess_.

_We found_ her_. The One's woman._

He could _feel_ his Twin's sadistic smile. _Did we, now?_

_We are going to enjoy this._

_Yes, we are...._

"Oi, ghost-boy." One turned a withering look on Cain, who strolled up as if he owned the park. "She's my catch."

One's eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses. "We don't see your name on her, wolf," he snarled. Cain shrugged. "I found her first."

"Prove it."

Neither noticed the girl carefully climbing down to a lower level, so intent were they on the other. It was only when her feet hit the ground and she began running did they realise their prey was escaping.

"Shit!" Cain exclaimed, running after her.

She had a good head start, but Cain would easily catch up –

He tripped over his own feet and landed on his face. One, on his heels, tripped over him and landed on _his_ face. They untangled themselves with growls and glares and looked up in time to see Abel step from his hiding spot and easily nab her. She struggled, but the werewolf handled her with ease and knocked her unconscious with a swift blow.

Abel grinned at his "cousin" and Twin One, hoisting her over his shoulder. "My catch," he said.

One and Cain growled.


	3. Frenchman

**The Matrix: Legacy**

**Two**

**Frenchman**

* * *

Gunner had no idea of how he'd mysteriously wound up in an apartment on the opposite side of the city simply by passing through two doors, but there weren't any men who wouldn't take the hint and just _die_ out for his blood here, so he figured that in the end, it was all good. 

Seraph had excused himself, so Gunner watched Sati play with her dolls. It was amazing how lifelike those dolls seemed. He didn't know why she had so many identical dolls that she called Agent Smith, but hey – it was her little game.

Gunner looked up as Seraph entered the room. "She would like to speak with you."

"Who would?"

"The Oracle."

Gunner arched an eyebrow. Odd, Seraph didn't seem the type to listen to fake mystics....

He rose and followed the fighter into a kitchen, where an old woman was putting cookies into an oven. Gunner blinked. _Okay, not exactly what I was expecting... Jee-_sus_, she looks like my grandma!_ Seraph bowed himself out, and the woman turned to face him. "So, you'd be Gunner. Trinity's friend. She mentioned you, you know."

Gunner blinked. Why would Carrie...?

The Oracle smiled. "It's easy to see why she trusted you with Avalon. You really care for the girl." Uncharacteristically shy, Gunner looked towards his feet and mumbled something along the lines of Avvy being like his sister.

"I know," the Oracle replied. "And you do a good job of keeping her out of Trinity's shadow. However, you know what I'm going to say, don't you."

"Car – Trinity has enemies," he said slowly. "And they'll think Avvy is her."

"For a time, yes. Unfortunately, Trinity made enemies who ultimately won't care the Avalon is not her. Just the blood connection will be enough to condemn her in the eyes of the Merovingian."

Gunner frowned. "The Merovingian... I've heard of him. French info trafficker, right?" The Oracle nodded. "Trinity was one of three people who managed to thoroughly anger not only him, but many of his employees as well. I fear that Avalon might not survive his wrath." Gunner opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "I am not yet finished with you, Leon O'Malley."

Gunner's jaw dropped open at her usage of his real name. "You cannot go haring off to rescue her. You interfered in one of the Merovingian's plots when you thwarted the kidnapping of Sati. He will put a price on your life, make no mistake about it."

Gunner snorted. "Nobody'd be dumb enough to go after me."

"No _human_ would. The Merovingian... tends not to employ humans, as you have witnessed," the Oracle replied calmly.

"Those two guys... the ones who wouldn't die...."

"They're known as Cain and Abel. Cousins; Cain is the elder of the two. They are both of them werewolves."

"Were - oh, Jesus," Gunner muttered. "No wonder that kid knew my bullets wouldn't work." "Sati is an extraordinary child," the Oracle told him calmly. "The Merovingian realises this, and he covets her talents for himself. It is why I asked Seraph to protect her; she is the future." Gunner looked over his shoulder to where the girl was play-wrestling with the Chinese man, and looked back to the Oracle.

"What about Avvy?"

The Oracle smiled. "She'll be just fine, Gunner. Avalon is quite a clever girl... but to rescue her, you would have to travel for several days."

Gunner gave her a blank look.

"The Merovingian's _château_ is located in the mountains outside the City."

"_Where!?_"

---------

Morgain woke slowly in a very soft, very comfortable bed. She opened her eyes to see a ceiling that was not her own. _Great. I've been kidnapped._ She rolled out of the bed, only to keep rolling more than she was used to and then fall to the floor.

She got up, noting that the bed was king-sized, then looked around the room to realise that it was nearly six times the size of her room. _Even better. The person who had me kidnapped is rich._ Her ice blue eyes fell on an outfit laid on a chair, as if they expected her to wear it. She walked over and felt the material. _Vinyl. Skin-tight, looks like. Only to a club, pal, and only if I were paid a million dollars._

She suddenly remembered the doll Sati had given to her. Carrie had been wearing that exact same outfit. If Morgain had had a voice, she would have screamed. She'd been kidnapped by someone who thought she was her sister!

_No way in _hell_ am I ever wearing that!_ she snarled mentally. The door opened, and a young-looking man with light brown hair stood there, lounging against the door. "Hurry up and change," he said, sounding bored. "He wants to see you."

Her eyes narrowed. 'There is no bloody way I am wearing that,' she signed. The man smirked. "Well, you aren't wearing those clothes either," he pointed out. "_Le_ _Vrai _has a dress code, and ratty jeans aren't part of it."

Morgain looked at her old but comfortable clothes and shot the man her Glare of Impending _Doom_™. He laughed and walked all the way in, opening up a closet full of clothing. "Take your pick, then."

'Get out,' she signed, to which he grinned. "As you will, milady... take too long and I'm coming in. He is not a patient man."

The man bowed himself out and closed the door, while she resisted the urge to flip him the bird. Jerk. Morgain sighed and walked to the closet, where she discovered that everything was her size. _Okay, _now_ I'm getting freaked out... good God, is there anything made of _cloth_ in here!?_

Towards the back of the closet, which was about the size of her room at home, she found a dark blue dress that she rather liked, despite herself. For one thing, it didn't expose cleavage, for another, it was long. And it _was_ cute, she admitted grudgingly.

Morgain wasn't stupid. She flipped off the light in the closet and changed in there. She also found some blue flats to match the dress that not only were her size, but more comfortable than the trusty boots she'd been wearing.

There was a large vanity in her room, with a large mirror to match. She took one look, then undid her hair and hunted down a brush. Anyplace with a French name tended to be a classy restaurant, and she refused to embarrass herself in front of her captor. After brushing it out, she found a scrunchie and tied her hair back at the nape of her neck. She looked at her reflection, then took the tie out. She looked less like Carrie when she left her hair long.

The door opened, and the same man walked in. He looked her over and let out a low, appreciative whistle, at which point she _did_ flip him the bird. He merely grinned and led her out, keeping a strong hand on her shoulder. This guy wasn't taking _any_ chances - his grip was almost tight enough to bruise her.

A jerk, but a smart jerk.

_Just my luck_.

A second man joined them outside a door, though at first Morgain thought he was a girl. "Baby-sitting duty, Abel?" the newcomer grinned. "Shut up, Tiger," 'Abel' replied. "The Frenchman wants to see her." 'Tiger' also looked her over. "She's younger than what he goes for. I thought he preferred real women, not virgin teenagers."

Abel punched him. "That is _not_ what he wants this one for, Tiger. Who does she remind you of?" Tiger arched an eyebrow, and Abel sighed. "Think shorter hair and black vinyl."

"The One's woman?"

"Yeah."

Tiger whistled. "I feel bad for you, girlie," he told Morgain.

"Tiger. Open the damn door."

The androgynous Asian man smirked and did so; Abel steered Morgain through, walking her to a man standing outside a restaurant.__

"_Puis-je vous aider_?" he asked. "The Merovingian wants to see her," Abel replied. The other man gave her a calculating look. "Ah, so you are ze one 'e 'as been expecting. Abel, you know ze way."

Abel steered her past other diners, mostly green, but with some gold scattered here and there. A second man came from the wings to join Abel in apparently guarding her.

"_Cain, damit froh Sie Zeit sich genommen haben, uns anzuschließen,"_ Abel hissed. "_Schließen Sie auf, Abel. Wenigstens habe ich belästigt, zu kommen_," the newcomer replied just as softly. **(1)**

Morgain had no time to wonder about what they had said; the man seated at the middle of the table leaned forward. "Ah, so _zis_ is ze little sister of ze infamous Trinity. I see zat beauty runs in ze family; please, sit."

Morgain didn't see that she had much of a choice. She sat in front of the Frenchman, shooting a covert glance at his beautiful tablemate. Those two were quite the handsome pair - yeah, the French guy was pretty hot, in an older-man kinda way.

Hesitantly, she signed, 'Who are you?'

He smirked. "Ah, of course, 'ow rude of me. I am known as ze Merovingian; zis is my lovely wife, Persephone," the woman nodded regally to her, "and I believe you 'ave already met Cain, Abel, and ze Twins." Silver caught the corner of her eye; she turned her head to see the albino pair that had made Gunner so nervous. They were shrouded in a silvery aura, something she'd never seen... come to think of it, the Mero...whatever, his wife, and indeed everyone at the table shone silver.

She turned her gaze back to the Frenchman, who still had that enfuriatingly smug look on his face. "And you, _ma chérie_, are Morgain Davidson. Ah, but Morgain is such an ugly name, is it not?" he went on, his eyes never leaving hers. "I am sure zat you would prefer it if I called you Avalon, _non_?"

He had her undivided attention. Again the smug smirk. "Don't look so surprised, _chérie_, zat I know both of your names." 'But how–' she started to sign, but he cut her off. "I am a trafficker of information, _mademoiselle_. I know everysing about you zere is to know." Avalon's eyes widened as the full implications of this hit her.

"Before you ask, _non_, I do not know what 'appened to your sister. 'Owever, some friends of hers managed to… greatly annoy me, and I _do_ know zey promised to look after you."

'So I'm bait.'

"_Oui_. But not just for zem... I 'ave ozer plans for you, _chérie_." He smiled. "And I can guarantee zat you will not like any of zem... such a pity zat you look so much like her. I might 'ave ignored you ozerwise."

Persephone could see the resentment in the girl's eyes, could read it in her code. She did pity the girl - after all, it wasn't her fault that she looked exactly like Trinity. However, the girl had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Persephone wanted a sample of her emotions to analyse. Not many humans grew up as she had, after all, and now that she knew that no matter where she went, she would always be trapped in the shadow of a sister she'd never met...

Persephone did have a fondness for the taste of despair. It reminded her that her own situation truly wasn't that horrible, especially now that her adulterous husband had shaped up a little. Oh, he still played around now and again, but the "special cakes" were a thing of the past, and he was no longer _obvious_ about it.

Then again, she had threatened to remove a non-crucial part of his programming that was nonetheless important to him if she caught him at it again....

Persephone carefully hid a smile and idly wondered if she ought to maybe send One or Two in to pay the girl a visit. She quickly discarded that idea; the Twin assassins tended to go a little... _overboard_ when they wanted to be intimidating. She'd much rather leave the girl to Cain and Abel, especially Abel. She needed to make up for killing him, after all, especially because she was rather fond of the slacker werewolves. And Abel _had_ caught the girl.

Now, as for the Ghost...

She knew that her husband would most likely torture and kill the rebel. However, she could not allow that. She remembered his kiss, so much better than that of the One. She hid a smile that sprang from the fact that she knew something about Ghost her husband did not...

The One had not been the only man in love with Trinity... and the Merovingian would not be the only one using Trinity's doppelganger to trap Ghost.

---------

**(1) **_Cain, damit froh Sie Zeit sich genommen haben, uns anzuschließen. -- _Cain, so glad you took the time to join us.

_Schließen Sie auf, Abel. Wenigstens habe ich belästigt, zu kommen -- _Shut up, Abel. At least I bothered to come.

---------

_Please note that the above translation comes from a free online translator. German-speakers, if you know a more grammatically correct way to say the above, please let me know; I appreciate it greatly. Thank you muchly!_

_-- Dark Puck_


	4. Abel

**The Matrix: Legacy**

**Three**

**Abel**

* * *

Morgain was strangely subdued as Cain and Abel led her back to her room. Cain stopped outside the door, letting his younger cousin explain the room to her.

Abel's explanations were short and to the point, and he even paused to reconfigure the laptop in her room so that she could type commands instead of speaking. "Just type what you want," he pointed to the keyboard, "and you'll get it. Don't be cute and try 'an escape route', because that will only earn you an unpleasant visitation. Also, if you try to hack that computer, the Frenchman will most likely give you to the Twins for an hour or so. You don't want that. Further transgressions will result in a visit to Cujo, who, by the way, makes torture an art form.

"That door," he pointed, "leads to the library. It'll only be unlocked when Cain or I are in there, so don't even try to get out that way. The bathroom has no cameras, but it's also over there," he pointed to a side of the room opposite the balcony. Obviously no escape route. "Now, the balcony itself is quite high. Don't even think about jumping; if the rocks don't kill you, the fall will.

"The main door will be locked at all times."

'You people don't leave a damn thing to chance, do you?' Avalon signed. Abel grinned mirthlessly. "Seeing as it's our heads if you escape, is it really so surprising? Ta-ta for now, _chérie_," he grinned again at her scowl. "We'll be calling in a few hours."

He bowed himself out, and Morgain gave in to a very childish urge and, snatching up a pillow from the bed, flung it at the door. She sat herself before the computer looked it over. She didn't recognise the brand or the OS -- hell, the screen was just black.

With a soft sigh, she typed in the first thing that came to mind.

**BINOCULARS**

_Green font, looks like Courier New... kinda like the old DOS systems._

An odd electric-sounding noise caught her ear, and she turned to see a pair of binoculars lying on a dresser.

_Holy shit_.

Slowly, she got up and walked to it, unable to believe her eyes. At last she touched them, and found that they were indeed real. _Now that's convenient. The future of shopping online. Poof!_

She returned to the computer, thought a moment, then typed:

**PLAIN T-SHIRT, PURPLE, M**

**COTTON PANTS, BLACK, SIZE 7**

**ANKLE SOCKS, WHITE**

Another of those electronic noises, and the clothes she'd requested appeared. Smiling, she took them into the closet and changed swiftly. Coming out, she typed in a last request and grinned when a stereo appeared. _I wonder if I can get the bass loud enough to rattle the windows of this place...._

---------

Ghost looked sadly at the markers commemorating Neo and Trinity's sacrifices. She was gone, really gone, and she wasn't coming back. It had been two and a half years since the One had ended the war. Humans and machines coexisted in an uneasy peace that could break at any time. So far it hadn't, but there had been close calls.

They'd set up an embassy of sorts halfway between 01 and Zion. The machines had requested Morpheus as an ambassador, and Morpheus had agreed after some serious soul-searching. He returned to Zion once a month, mainly to see Niobe, but also to speak with the Council on how the negotiations were coming.

In fact, he was due back in an hour.

Ghost turned away to return to his apartment, and blinked in shock when he saw Sparks and Link standing there. He looked from one operator to the other, feeling a sense of dread at their solemn faces. "We have a problem," Sparks said.

---------

Cain and Abel's sharp ears both caught the low, throbbing sound. They exchanged looks as Cain counted down, "Three... two... one...."

On cue, they heard Cujo howl, "_Turn that racket down_!" Cain grinned. "He just can't take it... boy, am I glad we're not as sensitive to noise as he is." Abel nodded. "And our sight is all the better for it... although the _nose_ thing can be a problem...." They both winced.

There was a heavy thumping, and Cujo stormed into the library. "Make her turn that damn noise off," he growled. "Noise? What noise?" Cain asked. "All we can hear is your yelling." Abel wrinkled his nose; it smelled like Cujo'd been tormenting some of the prisoners. He reeked of blood, sweat, and other things Abel did not wish to identify.

Cujo snarled and lunged for Cain, but the smaller werewolf nimbly leapt back. "Now, now, Cujo, be nice," he continued, grinning in an infuriating manner. Abel's grin matched his cousin's as he continued, "Yeah, it's to be expected that she'd try to annoy the hell out of us right off. Eventually the bass will give her a headache and she'll turn it down; for now, why don't you go to the other side of the _château_?" _And bathe_, he didn't add.

Cujo swung at him, but he ducked under the blow and leapt back, still grinning. The larger werewolf looked from Cain to Abel, snarled, and stomped out.

Once they were sure the burly werewolf was out of earshot, Abel let out the breath he'd been holding. "Woof! That is a God-awful smell."

"No kiddidg," Cain replied, holding his nose. "Abel, ged da spray. Abd hurry."

Once they'd purged the room of _Eau de Cujo_, they popped in one of their horror flicks. The low throbbing continued throughout _I Was a Teenage Werewolf_, _Attack of the Killer Tomatoes_, and _The Creature from the Black Lagoon_. Halfway through _The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati_, it stopped. They had just put in the original _Willard_ when the door opened and Avalon stepped in. Cain had fallen asleep, so it was up to Abel to harass her. He faked sleep as she walked by them, ignoring both them and the movie and disappearing among the bookshelves.

Silently, he rose and followed her. Her scent was a welcome relief from the odour of Cujo still clinging to the room and dramatically different from that of Trinity. Abel had only gotten the barest sniff, mainly due to getting a silver bullet in the forehead, but he remembered it anyway. Trinity had smelled of leather, gunpowder, and the One; Avalon smelled of vanilla and mist. _Unclaimed? She must have some strict parents._

He smiled as he crept up behind her, intending to startle her. However, she turned around and signed, 'Do it and die.' He immediately put on an innocent 'who, me?' face. "I was just looking for something to read," he lied.

'You suck at lying,' she told him as she looked at some of the books, then her face lit up as she saw what she had apparently been looking for. Abel followed her gaze to see _The Faerie Queen_ set. Eagerly she reached up to grab the first one, but the shelf was _just_ out of jumping reach.

He watched, highly amused, as she made several futile attempts to grab one, then she turned and gave him a speculative look. Before Abel could realise her intent, she had put her hand on his shoulder and used his height as a support as she jumped again. This gave her the required boost to tip the book off the shelf, and she caught it neatly.

She smirked at him and signed, 'Thanks for the lift,' before returning to her room. Abel just stood there for a moment after she'd vanished, utterly stunned.

Cujo's scent was suddenly nothing more than a bad memory. Abel's nose was filled with her. _Okay, too many movies,_ he thought. Food. Food would be nice. Yeah. Food. Cookies. He wanted cookies.

Abel wandered off in the direction of the kitchen.

---------

_My prayers have been answered: has given us a _hide bio_ option! No more survey results, no more long babbling bishie lists, no more fangirl ramblings! Huzzah!_

---------

**_Lehorin_******_ Hey, you just named the reason why I reread my favourite stories over and over. It didn't sound like a primary schooler's review at all, worry not, m'dear._


	5. Cookies

**The Matrix: Legacy**

**Four**

**Cookies**

* * *

An hour and seven cookies later, Abel had gotten his thoughts back together. As Cain had been asleep at the time, there was no need for anyone to find out about that.

Unfortunately, Abel had forgotten about the cameras. Tiger strolled in, a big grin on his face. Abel did not trust that grin. It meant that Tiger was in the mood to make trouble. "So, I'm on camera duty this week," he opened the conversation. Abel choked on his eighth cookie.

Tiger pounded the werewolf on the back to get him over his coughing fit; Abel glared at Tiger as he downed a glass of water. The androgynous vampire had removed his sunglasses, and Abel could see the good-natured mischief in his eyes. "You like her, don't you?"

Abel gave the white-clad program a Look. "No. I like her scent. It was a welcome relief from Cujo."

"I hear that," Tiger replied, nodding. Cain and Abel had it the worst, but they were far from the only programs who suffered from Cujo's stench-inducing "hobbies".

"Still," Tiger went on, "she's easy on the eyes."

"A lot of girls are easy on the eyes," Abel growled, not liking the way this conversation was going.

"Yeah, but Trinity's sister. How many can claim a conquest like that?"

"None," Abel snapped. "She's unclaimed."

"Which means she's up for grabs."

"Tiger, if you're trying to play 'matchmaker', I swear to the Source I'll…"

"Tiger neglects to mention that she dances," a new voice put in. Abel and Tiger looked up as another program sat down, the long-haired Seth. Abel arched an eyebrow as he leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his coppery hair. "She dances."

Seth nodded. "She's got a talent for it, too. Too bad she was wearing workout clothes, though. I'd have liked to see more of her figure." Abel rolled his eyes. "You're hopeless, the both of you."

They shrugged. "Come your turn on the cameras, you'll see what we mean," Seth told him. Abel snorted, and ate another cookie before reaching for a beer.

---------

Ghost sat in silence after Sparks told him the news. _The Merovingian has Avalon now... blast it, Trin, how am I supposed to look out for her while she's in the Matrix?_

Link was thinking. "Y'know," he began, "that mansion of his is just another part of the Matrix, right?" Ghost nodded silently. "Now, what do most of the coppertops running around Zion have in common?" Link continued. Ghost and Sparks smiled at the same time, each catching on. "We're hackers," Ghost supplied. "So let's do some," Sparks put in, throwing his arms around Link's and Ghost's shoulders. "Niobe and Morpheus'll probably be occupied for awhile, and they have to go see the Council first, so let's go cheer up a certain dancer."

The three men made for Spark's apartment – of them, he was the only one with computers all over the place. Along the way, Sparks managed to snatch Krsna, a coppertop who had been released during the time of the One and who had just completed his training. The four of them worked in harmony; Ghost doing the initial hack, Link and Sparks handling the minute details, and Krsna covering their tracks and undoing any alarms in the system.

Krsna had put in for the _Logos_, despite their current lack of a ship; Niobe had snapped the kid up before Lock had remembered the Logos was gone with Trinity and Neo.

Krsna hailed from Indiatown and the German District in the Megacity; he was fluent in Farsi, German, English, and Computer; he was a hacker renowned for covering his tracks flawlessly. He was so good, he'd never encountered an Agent, a feat not even the One had managed.

He also had a reputation of being the cause of several minor explosions all over Zion, as well as one that had nearly levelled the training facility. When he had been taken before the Council, black-faced and huge-grinned, he had explained that the actual problem had been with a chemistry experiment that had been sabotaged.

No one was sure if that was true or not, however, there had been no casualties and no one could prove that it had been done deliberately or not, so they let him off with a warning.

A year under Niobe had shaped him up, at least.

"Hey, Ghost?"

Ghost spared the Indian a quick glance.

"When we're done, can I upload a virus into their system?"

Or not.

"No," Ghost, Link, and Sparks replied simultaneously. "That's what I get to do," Sparks added, earning him Looks from the other two. "What?" he asked innocently.

"We're in," Link said suddenly, and all four bent to their tasks.

---------

_Farsi is one of the languages spoken in India, yes? If I'm wrong, please correct me. Yes, Krsna fans, the Mad Bomber is back. Worship, laud, adore, and all that._

---------

**_funkless- _******_Awww__, thanks! I like to think I've improved since I began writing; thanks for the compliments. And yes, I am – how'd you guess?_

**_lehorin-_******_ Your first? Hmm. You think I'm accurate with the Twins? I think I love you. Thanks for the compliment!_

* * *

_Hmm, fanfiction dot net seems to have taken away my semicolons...._


	6. Logos

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Five  
****_Logos_**

* * *

__

The four hackers barely had time to log off Spark's computers and shut down before someone knocked on the door. "I bet we got caught," Sparks mumbled as he went to the door. "You're such a pessimist," Link shot back as Sparks opened up to see Niobe and Morpheus. "Sparks, have you seen Gho...," Niobe's voice trailed off as she saw the rest of her crew inside the apartment, along with the other half of the _Nebuchadnezzar's_ survivors. "Never mind."

Ghost rose to his feet in a liquid movement that Krsna tried – and failed – to copy. Walking to the open door, he asked, "Yes, Captain?"

"Morpheus says that the machines have a surprise for us down at the embassy. We're taking a trip on the _Hammer_." Looking to Link, she added, "You're coming, too; the Council has reassigned you to me." Link nodded.

"Pack your bags," Morpheus ordered, "and be at the dock in two hours."

The three visitors scattered to their separate apartments, Niobe yelling after Krsna, "_And nothing flammable! Or explosive!_" Sparks laughed while Morpheus just shook his head. "You sure you can handle him, Niobe?" Niobe gave him one of her famous Incredulous Looks™. "I'm as sure of _that_ as you were that Neo was the One."

Morpheus laughed and led Niobe away, leaving Sparks to wonder and worry about what _surprise_ the machines had in store for the crew of the _Logos_.

"Why did you take Krsna?" Morpheus asked Niobe as they walked towards the only working ship in Zion, passing by the nearly-repaired _Icarus_ and the half-fixed _Gnosis _and _Caduceus_. "For starters, he volunteered for my crew," Niobe answered after a moment. "But you had no ship," Morpheus said. "I know. I asked him about that. He told me it was because he figured that, since we had the smallest full crew, we'd probably be the first to get one when they were fixed."

"That is true," Morpheus mused, "especially seeing as the only other full crew miraculously retained their ship." They traded mischievous grins as they remembered their run through the machine tunnel, proving once more that Niobe was the best pilot the Fleet had.

"Why else did you take him?" Morpheus was not done questioning her on her choice of crew. She shrugged. "I guess I figured it was about damn time I added someone new, especially now that we've all heard each other's stories a hundred times over. We need new ears to rattle."

Morpheus gave her one of his own famous Looks. "And this has nothing to do at all with his strange affinity to anything explosive?" "It might," she admitted with a grin. "And if I can talk Roland into it, I wanna take a swing up to broadcast depth and see what the Oracle has to say about him. Ghost got a message from Seraph saying that she was eager to see the new batch of kids."

"She always is," Morpheus said reminiscently as they walked up the ramp of the _Mjolner_. Within two hours, Ghost, Sparks, and Krsna had arrived on board. Link was the last to arrive, his clothing looking as if it had been tugged on hastily. Apparently he'd given Zee a special 'good-bye'. As was his habit following the end of the war, he'd wrapped Zee's charm around his hand.

Also on board was Niobe's other recruit, a young woman named Danaë. Danaë was a quiet girl with extraordinary amounts of patience and what Sparks had termed "healing hands". The hospitals had been loathe to let the girl go, but Niobe had been persistent. Danaë could jack into the Matrix if needed, but she preferred to remain in the real world and Niobe figured that it'd be nice to keep the kid as a wild card in the very small chance that they needed her as back-up.

At the moment, she was curled up next to AK, the _Mjolner's_ operator. She was asleep, and the normally antisocial man was absently stroking her dark hair. No one was quite sure what had brought him to informally adopt her, but he'd done it anyway. Sparks opened his mouth to comment, but AK shot him a look so deadly Sparks had the feeling that if looks could kill, he'd have been roasted where he stood.

Instead he wandered off to bother Colt. Once he'd gone, Ghost walked in and sat near the pair. Neither of them spoke as Ghost sank into meditation and AK drifted off to sleep, and neither of them noticed when the ship lifted up from the docks.

---------

Morgain heard the lock click open. She'd been trapped here for about thirty hours now, she figured. She'd dined with the Merovingian last night, squirming a bit under the looks a pale man with long hair gave her until Tiger had leaned over and said something soft, at which point he'd turned his gaze onto a man with long brown hair who had smiled and mouthed, 'I still have that crossbow.'

Well, apparently some of the people around here were looking out for either her welfare or theirs; she remembered Abel's comment on it being his neck if she escaped. Seeing as she was bait, that also translated to it being his neck if she was hurt, too.

Well, Cain or Abel appeared to be in the library, and she was done with the part of _Faerie Queen_ she'd wanted to read, so Morgain got up and carried the book into the library.

Neither of her baby-sitters was there; instead, Persephone was watching _her_ on the huge TV. She shut it off and turned to Morgain. "That didn't take you too long," she said, rising and walking towards the girl. Morgain took an involuntary step back, feeling her back press up against the wall. She didn't trust this beautiful woman with her silver aura.

Persephone smiled. "What's the matter? You don't trust me?"

_Is she reading my mind?_

"I'm reading your face, darling," Persephone replied, amused. She brushed Morgain's hair away from her face, saying, "You really ought to wear this up; it would make you look so much older." The _Faerie Queen_ was occupying the girl's hands, effectively silencing her, but the crimson tint to her cheeks made up for that.

Persephone easily removed the book from her hands, carelessly tossing it onto a table and leading Morgain over to the couch. Morgain could only be envious of Persephone's beauty, her grace and poise, and especially her figure.

"It has been quite some time since I've had a woman around to talk to," Persephone sighed, turning the girl around and running a brush taken from her purse through Morgain's black waterfall of hair. "Usually the women here are either in a hurry to get what they want and leave, or they're the women of my husband's minions." Morgain felt the brush against the middle of her back as Persephone pulled it away for another run through her hair.

"Such a pretty name, Avalon. From the legends of King Arthur, isn't it?"

'Yes,' she signed, unsure if Persephone could see it. "I thought so. It suits you, you know, though I think Eden would have done just as well for you. A pretty name for a pretty child."

Was the woman really this naïve? Or did she have an ulterior motive for this... 'girl talk'? Persephone had finished with the brush -- Morgain's hair hadn't really needed it -- and was now pulling the sable locks away from her face, slender hands drawing a strand from behind Morgain's ear and braiding it. "I fear that my husband is quite upset with Ghost and his captain. After all, in a sense, they did clear the way for the One; but they also killed a great many of his minions along the way, and he does _so_ hate having to reboot them... that's probably why he took on the men he did. Less rebooting."

Morgain was now of the opinion that the beautiful woman was quite nuts -- she was speaking of men almost as if they were programs. "Be a darling and hold this for me, would you?" Persephone requested, handing her the braid and starting a second one on the other side. "And I am quite sane," she added, almost as an afterthought. "You just have no knowledge on the subject of which I speak. You've watched horror films, of course; Cain and Abel are all but addicted to some of the _cheesiest_ ones ever made.

"Watch the men closely, Morgain Avalon Davidson. You will understand soon enough."

_What does horror have to do with Tweedledee and Tweedledum?_ Morgain wondered as Persephone took the braid from her hand.

Persephone smiled as she began twining the two braids together. Soon the question would start running around in Avalon's mind, drawing her towards the knowledge of the Matrix. Undoubtedly it would be the Ghost who would come to free her... and she would have him.

Persephone was a patient woman. She could wait for quite some time to claim Ghost for herself.

---------

"Wake up call!" came Sparks' cheerful voice, snapping Ghost back to reality and causing AK to growl and throw a hat at him. Danaë had awoken a little beforehand and was talking softly with Krsna. Ghost saw the medic shaking her head and smiled gently; obviously the Indian had asked her if she could smuggle a few things on board for him.

A small brown hand descended from on high and resoundedly thwacked Krsna upside the back of his head; the boy yelped more out of indignity than pain and turned to glower at Niobe. "I said, 'no explosives'," she said, trying hard to look stern. "But you didn't say she couldn't bring 'em on board," he said, not the least bit abashed.

"That's because I can trust Danaë not to blow up Roland's ship with 'em," Niobe answered. "Let's get moving, all of you." AK caught Ghost before he could leave. "Hey Ghost -- when she goes to see her," Ghost didn't need to ask who either female in question was, "could you keep an eye on her for me? She's like my own kid; I don't want anything to happen to her."

Ghost nodded. "It would be my pleasure, AK."

"Thanks," AK replied before disappearing back aboard the _Mjolner_. Danaë had fallen behind Link, looking back a little longingly at the ship. Ghost put his hand gently on the small redhead's shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll see him again," he said reassuringly. She smiled up at him. "Thank you, Ghost."

Ghost's reply died on his tongue as saw what the others saw outside of the embassy. Sparks stared, for once utterly silent, then he uttered a loud, "_My baby's come back to me!!_"

This had been the machine's surprise: a fully repaired, fully functional _Logos_.

---------

**_lehorin--_******_ Ahh, a Brown fan! Huzzah! …people mix up Jones and Brown? How?_


	7. Sparring Match

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Six  
****Sparring Match**

* * *

Niobe and Ghost hadn't seen Sparks this happy in a long time. He was darting all over the ship, claiming he was greeting it. Danaë couldn't stop giggling, Krsna had the strangest look on his face, and Niobe was laughing so hard she had to hold onto Morpheus for support. Ghost just shook his head at their operator's crazy antics before turning to Morpheus. "Did you know?" he asked the older man, who only grinned in reply before clapping a hand on Link's shoulder.

"Have fun," he told his ex-operator. "If you thought operating the _Neb_ was interesting... well, the _Logos_ can be a soap opera."

"That's not very reassuring," Link muttered.

"You'll do fine, Link," Morpheus told him confidently. "You're Sparks' backup in case of emergency."

Link nodded as Niobe recovered from her case of Sparks-Antics and drew in some calming breaths. "Thank you, Morpheus," she told him.

"Don't thank me. Thank him." He gestured to an android standing nearby. "This is Kai. He's the ambassador from 01." The android offered Niobe a polite bow that she returned.

"Thank you for repairing our ship."

Kai's voice, when he replied, was quite pleasant, despite the metallic undertone. "It was our pleasure. If you had not loaned the One your ship, it is most likely that we would all be dead or overwritten by the Smith program. This is simply our way of repaying the favour." As Danaë let out a startled, happy cry, he added, "We also took the liberty of updating your medical bay." Ghost nodded his thanks to Kai, who explained, "at one time, when I had been plugged into the Matrix, my shell was badly injured thanks to a car accident. She was able to assist in my shell's recovery well enough that the System decided not to delete me, so that is also my way of thanking her."

"Kai and I have to get going," Morpheus said. "Apparently, a lot of paperwork has been piling up." He sighed, as did Kai, which just gave Niobe another case of the giggles.

"So AI find paperwork boring, too?"

"Exceedingly," Kai answered in a dry tone that got Niobe going all over again. Morpheus just shook his head before wishing Niobe and her crew farewell and good luck, then he and Kai entered the embassy.

"Right," Niobe said, half to herself, then called to her crew as she and Ghost boarded the _Logos_, "Let's get this show on the road!"

"Aye-aye, Cap'n, _sir_!" Krsna and Link called out at the same time.

---------

A very confused Morgain returned to her room, her hair twisted into a number of braids that looped around each other to fall down her back -- or it would, had Persephone not doubled them all back up so that it only went to her shoulders.

She did not understand the woman at all, though she had the feeling that she also planned on using her to get at this Ghost character. Morgain scowled as she went onto the balcony, looking out at the darkened sky. It was cold, so she went back in to type in a request at the laptop.

She grabbed the coat as it appeared, putting it on before returning outside. So... this mansion was on top of a mountain? She could see lights and went back in for the binoculars. She could see a small town at the mountain's base....

A slow smile spread across her lips as the barest traces of an escape plan began to emerge.

By the next day, Morgain had all the details planned out and catalogued in the one place they'd be safe: her head. She went over it again as she danced in her prison, since she only needed to hear the beat of the music to dance to it.

Her dancing had kept her body limber, especially because Gunner had introduced her to the acrobatics of break-dancing, so if she were able to get a long-enough rope, she should be able to hold on to climb down. She had a warm coat already, and surprisingly enough, her wallet hadn't been taken, so she had some money, at least. Food was another thing... of course, she'd already requested and gotten a box of Goldfish™, so if she could save up enough over time, she should have enough to get her to that town she'd seen last night. She couldn't use sheets for rope -- after all, they always did it in the movies, plus it was the most obvious way out...

_Wait. Those clothes in the closet, the ones I'd never wear in a million years. They'll work perfectly._ She had her pocket knife still, mainly because it was small and the blade was useless, but also because she tended to keep it in her boots, the one place no one thought to check. With enough work, she should be able to cut enough of the cloth that she'd be able to rip it... to cover the noise, she'd have music playing. She'd done that already anyway, just like she did every night, music helped her to sleep.

As long as she could hide her activities from the cameras, it could work. She'd just have to be careful not to raise their suspicions, that was all.

---------

Danaë watched Ghost meditating in the Zen Garden program he'd brought with him before looking to Sparks. "Does he always do that?"

"Whenever he gets the chance," Sparks answered. "He's been going there more since Trinity died, though. I give it two years before he dies of his broken heart." Danaë glared at him, and he shrugged. "It was kinda obvious that Ghost loved her, you know. He just thought he could hide it."

"If he loved her, why didn't he tell her before she met the One?" Danaë asked.

"The Oracle," Sparks said simply. "I dunno what the hell she told him, I just know what he looked like before and after he went to see her. He'd been planning on confessing his love to Trinity after he saw the Oracle. Instead, he got in, programmed that," he gestured to the garden, "and sat in there for hours. He changed after that meeting."

Sparks sighed melodramatically. "What a waste that he decided to live like a monk. I can name five girls who are all nuts over him... 'the strong, silent type'," he mocked. Danaë smiled a little as Sparks went on, "and he's just gotten worse since she died. I mean, at least she was there before. He could pretend. Now...," he shrugged helplessly.

Danaë thought a moment. "Didn't Ghost spar with Trinity here?"

"Oh yeah. A lot. Which is why I think his coming here all the time just makes it worse."

Danaë considered this, then said, "Jack me in." Sparks arched an eyebrow. "You're not actually going to --"

"Yes, I am."

"He's going to beat you soundly. Five minutes tops."

Danaë grinned a little mischievously. "Bet you he won't."

"What's the stake?"

"I win, you upload me a fighting program of my choice."

"Fine. I win, you kiss me. A _real_ kiss, not one of those short ones girls cheat with."

Danaë gave him a Look reminiscent of one of Niobe's, then nodded. "Start sorting through the fighting programs." Sparks grinned and helped her into a chair.

"Five minutes," she told him before he plugged her in.

Ghost was unaware of the visitor to his program until a small hand tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped and turned, blinking at the redhead standing before him. Her digital self had changed from the Danaë he was used to: Her hair was darker, a pretty blue-black colour; her jeans were a rich royal blue, and she wore a very long purple shirt. Never before had he seen an RSI so completely different from the owner's true appearance.

However, since there were only two women aboard the _Logos_, he had an idea of who she was. "Danaë? What are you doing here?"

Danaë smiled. "You've got your ship back; you shouldn't be moping like this," she answered.

"I was meditating, not moping."

"You were moping."

Ghost sighed. "I was not. I was... remembering."

"Trinity?"

He nodded. Danaë sighed. "Ghost...." She said nothing after that for a few moments, then she tugged on his arm. "Spar with me."

Ghost blinked. "What?"

"Spar with me," she repeated. "You need something to do, and I need the practice."

Ghost hesitated, then said, "I may hurt you."

She shrugged. "I can take it. Now come on!" She had dropped into a fighting stance. Ghost sighed and mirrored her stance. As soon as he had, she had charged him, bringing her left leg up in a high kick that he blocked with ease. He didn't see her fist coming up though, and she socked him pretty good.

She scowled as the air exploded from his lungs. "You're better than this, Ghost! Forget Trinity and focus on the fight!" His eyes hardened as he looked at her, then he struck without warning, without even a hint of where he would go. Her eyes widened in pain as his foot came around and planted itself against her stomach, throwing her to the ground. Even as she fell, Ghost was in the air, coming down, almost too fast for her to see.

She barely avoided his strike by rolling; pushing herself up with her arms, she kicked both feet out and got him in the chin -- or she would have, had he not leapt back. She got up, watching him. "Better, Ghost, but you're still holding back! Fight me!"

He didn't move, so she went to him, launching her fist towards his gut. He caught her wrist and threw her over his shoulder; Danaë hit the ground rolling and hid a smile. He was getting into it. Her desire to smile soon faded: As she came again to her feet, Ghost was already there, throwing a punishing kick into her stomach again.

From that point on it was a slaughter; Danaë didn't stand a chance against the older man, but she kept getting up, and Ghost kept on knocking her down. She managed to get in another hit, but Ghost replied to that with a powerful hit that threw her down to the stone path. A sharp pain exploded behind her skull, and Danaë blacked out.

She awoke to see Ghost's worried face looking down at her. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm a little sore, but I'll be fine," she reassured him.

He nodded. "Spar-" he started to call, but Danaë stopped him.

"How long were we fighting, Sparks?"

"Six minutes," came the operator's dejected voice.

Danaë smiled. "Looking forward to that kiss, Sparky?" she asked.

Ghost looked at her. "What kiss?"

"Just a little bet I made with Sparks. He said I couldn't last five minutes against you. Now he owes me an upload."

Ghost chuckled a bit. "Take us out, Sparks."

* * *

**_Lehorin_****_ – _**_Oh, I agree completely. People who don't even attempt researching their fics… _aggravate_ me…_

**_Quietly Making Noise –_**_ Hey! No pokey! I'm working on the damn two-people-per-line problem; it doesn't help that I don't see it as a problem. Yeesh. But thanks for the compliment on my playing of 'Sephone._

**_Picklish_**_ – Awww, geee, thanks! I hope you enjoy the rest of the fic!  
  
_

_Current Music(Iiiiits baaaaaack!): _867-5309 _by Tommy Tutone_


	8. Twins

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Seven  
****Twins**

* * *

One and Two arrived simultaneously in the Merovingian's office. The Twins were quite bored and had been ever since the war had ended. There was really nothing to do... no one to harass... especially because Abel had damn near blown a gasket when they'd suggested an intimidation routine with Trinity's look-alike-sister. The promise of something interesting with a possibility of chaos and mayhem drew them quickly when the Merovingian called. Generally they preferred to annoy the hell out of him by taking their own sweet time.

"You rang?" One announced their presence. By now, even their sudden appearances could not startled the Frenchman.

"Yes... I 'ave received word zat certain... friends of ours 'ave regained their lost ship. Even better, zey 'ave some new recruits zat ze fortuneteller wishes to see," the Merovingian said.

One and Two exchanged a look. "You wish us to intercept them?"

"_Mais__ oui_. Ze recruits I care nothing about, 'owever, I wish for ze woman and ze Ghost to be taken alive, if possible. If it is not, zen let zem go... I 'ave an alternate plan to ensnare ze Ghost and 'is captain."

The Twins exchanged identical grins. This would be _fun!_

---------

Ghost caught Danaë in the medbay. "Danaë. Have you done any training for fighting?"

She shook her head. "Even when I was taken out, I focused more on the uploads for health and nursing. I do better if I have a weapon anyway; Choi said I'm a natural knife fighter."

Ghost sighed. "No wonder you bet a sparring program on our match. Danaë, I could have seriously hurt you."

"I know," she said softly, "but I don't like seeing you moping like that." Ghost placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, but couldn't think of anything to say. "I know you loved her, Ghost, but it's been almost three years. I never met her, but... I don't think she'd like you acting this way."

He nodded. "I know. Just like I know that if she were here, she'd have plugged in like you did and given me the sound ass-kicking I probably deserved."

She smiled up at him. "At least I got a fighting program out of this. And I got out of kissing Sparks."

He shook his head as Niobe stuck hers in. "We're going to see her."

"The Oracle?" Ghost queried.

"Yes. You're coming too, Danaë."

The young medic nodded and followed gunner and captain out of the room. Krsna was already plugged in, writing some sort of program in a construct of his own.

Link plugged them in while Sparks got ready to transfer them into the Matrix. "Hey, Ghost," Sparks called. "If you guys run into trouble and don't make it, can I have your boots?" Ghost snatched Krsna's hat from off the unconscious boy's head and threw it at Sparks, who ducked. He came back up, grinning, only to have one of Link's extra gloves catch him in the face.

"No fair!" he cried, but Link had already plugged Ghost in.

The four free minds stood around the table, each in their traditional outfits. Ghost noticed that Dana's RSI was still dramatically different from that of her physical body, while the only apparent change to Krsna was longer hair, black jeans, and steel-toed boots. Niobe wore her usual gator-skin trench coat, pants, and boots, all dyed red, with their matching tan shirt and red leather gloves; Ghost wore _his _usual black suit and grey trench coat.

"Let's go," Niobe said, gesturing for her two recruits to follow her. Ghost picked up the rear. The captain led them to a Pontiac GTO; Krsna immediately made for shotgun, only to be pulled out gently but firmly by Ghost, who then took his usual seat beside his captain.

"There are certain things we do not change, Kris," Niobe said, smiling at his pout as he got in the back.

Danaë hesitated for a moment. "Captain?" Niobe looked back at her. "We're being watched." Captain and first mate looked at each other, then in the direction Danaë was looking. Both of them recognised one of the dreadlock-wearing albinos who worked for the Merovingian.

"Shit!"

Ghost reacted rather than speak, reaching back and yanking Danaë into the car seconds before Niobe floored it. "Not friends of yours?" Krsna drawled.

"You might say that," she muttered. "Least he wasn't in a car... where'd his twin get off to, I wonder?"

A yelp and a shriek from the back seat answered that. Niobe looked in the rear view mirror to see the other Twin materialise between Krsna and Danaë. "Ghost!" she yelled, too late: their hitchhiker had grabbed both kids and dematerialised, taking them with him. "Where the hell'd he learn to do that?" Niobe demanded as, disregarding any incoming traffic, she spun the car around.

Krsna reacted quickly; his foot was moving even before they solidified and, as they did, caught the albino behind the heel, dumping him onto his back. He grabbed Dana's wrist. "Run!"

She needed no second urging as she ran with him; unfortunately, the two teens weren't fast enough. She felt the man behind them snag a handful of her hair and yank hard, pulling her out of Krsna's grasp and into his own. "Kris!" she yelled as she fought the albino's steely grip to no avail. Something barrelled into the silver-clad man, knocking him down.

"Run, Danaë!" Ghost yelled as he leapt away from the albino's vicious backswing with a razor. Danaë hesitated, but Krsna grabbed her wrist once more and pulled her after him.

They didn't get far before the albino's twin stepped in their path, effectively cutting them off. Danaë grabbed Krsna's cell phone as he drew a pair of Glocks and opened fire.

"Operator," came Sparks' worried voice. "We need a way out!" Danaë cried as Krsna yelled, "Holy shit!"

"They're like ghosts; bullets won't work on 'em," Sparks supplied helpfully.

"I think Kris just figured that out; now get us away from here!"

"Workin' on it, sweetheart."

Krsna yelped as the albino's razor slashed up his chest, followed by a hard punch to the gut that threw him into Danaë, knocking the phone from her hand. The man picked it up and said, "We're sorry, this number is no longer in service," before crushing it in his hand. Dana's green eyes widened as he approached them. The Indian bomber was down and probably wouldn't be up for awhile.

Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew a Swiss Army Knife and opened the longest blade in it. It wasn't a match for this man's razor, but at least she could defend herself. He looked at the blade in her hand and offered her a slow smile reminiscent of a cougar stalking its prey before lunging for her. She ducked under his blow and came up behind him, trying to lead him away from Krsna.

It worked: he had turned and was following her every movement with his eyes... she thought so, anyway. It was hard to tell with those sunglasses on. The dreadlocked man lunged again for her, but this time was able to counter her dodge with a reverse-slash, drawing the razor towards him and cutting a deep line across her cheek.

Like Dana's fight with Ghost, it was no contest. She hit the albino a lot more than she'd hit Ghost, but he merely phased and healed, then cut her deeper and longer. Eventually he struck her hard enough with his fist to throw her down beside the unconscious Krsna. No sooner had she hit than he had grabbed her arm, hauling her up and pinning her against him, razor against her throat, cutting her a bit.

"Not a bad fight," he whispered in her ear, nuzzling her hair a bit and making her tremble. "Not bad at all...."

---------

Cain and Abel were on camera duty now. As usual, Cain had fallen asleep, leaving his work to the smallest werewolf. Abel was starting to doze off as well, then something caught his eye.

Morgain.

Dancing.

And dancing well.

He suddenly understood why Tiger and Seth had been loathe to leave the cameras for a change. Hell, he wouldn't miss this show of female for anything. Oddly enough, Abel didn't feel like sharing, either. He let Cain sleep and wondered if he could pay Tiger and Seth to keep their mouths shut.

---------

_Current Music: _Hey, Mama (Radio Edit) _by Black-Eyed Peas_

_....okay, apparently the umlauted e's in Dana_ _are disappearing when I tack on an 's. I blame and move on; if anyone knows a way of fixing this issue, please tell me. Thanks!_


	9. Not Like Her

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Eight  
****Not Like Her**

* * *

Ghost was hard-pressed to handle this albino who could dematerialise and avoid both his bullets and his blows. Fortunately, he didn't need to fight the program very long, just enough for Niobe to come around and pick him up. As he slid in, Niobe handed him a cell phone. "See where the kids are. I am _not_ losing them to that lecher!"

"Operator," Link answered Ghost's call.

"Where are Krsna and Danaë?"

"In serious trouble. The other Twin thing caught them up. Krsna's trying to fight him -- oh, shit, that had to hurt!"

In the background, Ghost could hear Sparks cry, "Shit, not the phone!"

"What's going on?" Niobe asked, and Ghost repeated her query.

"They're in trouble," Link said, worried. "Kris is down, and that Twin thing just crushed their phone. Oh, my -- no, no, no, don't do _that!_"

Niobe grabbed the phone from Ghost. "Link, put Sparks on."

"Yeah, cap'n?"

"What the hell is going on?"

"I think your new medic is suicidal."

"Sparks," Niobe said warningly.

"She's fighting that Twin thing with a pocket knife," he replied, and Niobe groaned.

"Holy shit!" came Link's cry. "She just hit him!"

"Behind you!" Sparks yelped, and Niobe gunned forward, barely avoiding being rear-ended.

"Great. Sparks, direct me and have Link keep an eye on the kids."

"Go left!"

Niobe spun the wheel, turning and narrowly missing a head-on collision. "You want speed? I'll give you speed," she muttered as Ghost leaned out the window, opening fire.

A few minutes later, Sparks said, "Okay, you want the good news or the bad news?"

"Sparks, now is not the time."

"Good news is, you lost him. Bad news is, Danaë lost to his brother."

"Is she-"

"No, he's toying with her," Sparks growled, "and -- the hell? I can't see Krsna!"

"What?"

"He was there! He's just - gone!"

---------

One was greatly enjoying intimidating this little rebel. He could feel her trembling against his body and grinned. "We don't think we'll kill you... not just yet," he purred in her ear, enjoying the feel of her hair against his cheek. "It would be such a waste."

Danaë was terrified, fighting heard not to whimper at his touch. She didn't even notice that Krsna was no longer on the ground; all her senses were focused on the man holding her captive when without warning he went limp, falling away from her. She turned to see Krsna tossing away a manhole cover. "Bloody...," he muttered, examining his various cuts before turning to her. "C'mon, let's get out of here before Whitey there wakes up. I doubt he'll be down long."

She nodded, unmoving, just staring at the man at her feet. "Oh, for--!" Krsna grabbed her wrist and drew her along after him. "C'mon, we have to get away from here." She nodded, letting him drag her away.

Krsna had a God-awful headache, but at least he'd saved Danaë. He was just relieved that he'd been able to slam that freak hard enough to knock him out. He didn't know the capabilities of the Twins. Apparently, seeing him when he didn't want to be seen wasn't one of them.

Apparently, they also weren't from Shyama's time... which was good for him. Very good, or he was sure he'd be dead now... or being brought to the Frenchman. _Where to from here? I know she's nearby, but I don't know where... damn it!_

He felt eyes watching him and turned, but there was only Danaë, who was recovering from her Twin encounter. He turned back to watch where he was going and yelped in surprise to see a Chinese man in front of him. The man smiled a bit. "Fear not, Krsna. I have come to take you to her."

"Who are you?" Danaë asked from behind him.

"I am Seraph," he answered. At those words Krsna paled. He knew that name. Danaë, behind him, couldn't see, but Seraph could.

"I am not the one you should fear. Come. She's waiting."

"Who?" Krsna asked, still wary.

"The Oracle."

Krsna looked from Seraph to Danaë. Well, odds are Seraph had changed in the years since Shyama had encountered him, and if not, at least he'd kill Danaë quickly and not taunt her like the Twin had. Seraph supposedly had honour written into his program... though 'honour' generally was not a requisite of those working for the Frenchman.

Krsna detected the flaw in his thought process. If Seraph was still working for _him_, why was he then taking them to _her_? It was either a change of "heart" or a trick. Either way, Seraph the Frickin' Mirror could still kick his ass. Best to go with him. If it was a trap, hopefully he'd have the decency to kill Danaë instead of taking her to the Frenchman. No doubt he'd find her sh- RSI alluring.

"All right," he said at last, voicing none of his fears to Danaë.

Seraph led them away.

---------

Sparks heard Niobe sigh in relief after he reported that Seraph had found the kids. He didn't mention that Krsna's adrenaline had peaked when he saw the program, then hadn't gone down after the shock of him just -- being there. Hell, Sparks hadn't seen him coming, and he was watching the screen.

It was like Krsna _knew_ Seraph from somewhere... but the kid hadn't has any known contact with any sort of program before being unplugged. Weird. Then there was his little disappearing act, as well as an odd fluctuation in his code for a moment after he reappeared. Something odd was going on with the Indian bomber. But what?

---------

Abel had snuck away from the cameras, leaving Cain snoring in front of them. This wasn't an unusual occurrence, so nobody bothered him as he made his way to Avalon's room. She was so focused on her dancing that he was able to unlock, open, enter, close, and lock the door without her noticing.

Interesting, that. Very interesting.

Morgain leapt on the beat, eyes closed as she spun in the air before coming down and landing in a crouch, legs splayed apart, one hand in the air, and one holding her balance. Breathing hard, she rose to her feet and spun as clapping met her ears.

'What are you doing here!?' she signed angrily as Abel drew closer to her. "Watching you dance," he said with a soft grin. "It's so much nicer in person than on camera, you know."

'Go to hell!'

"Been there. Not pleasant," he murmured as he approached her. Surprisingly, she didn't back away. "You're nothing like her, you know," he said unexpectedly. Morgain blinked. 'Like who?'

"Her. Trinity. I didn't see her for very long, but... from what I've heard, you two sound nothing alike."

Morgain's lips parted in an 'o' of surprise. That was quite possibly the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. Abel apparently wasn't finished. "Sure, on the outside, you look like her," he went on, placing his hand against her cheek, his nose filling again with her scent, "but that really means nothing in the long run. No matter what, you aren't Trinity. And you don't have to be trapped in her shadow, either." He leaned in, speaking softly in her ear. "You can escape her shadow, you know. Don't ever let anybody tell you different."

Morgain stared at the man with startled blue eyes. This close, she could see the small brown soul patch on his chin as well as the playful glint in his steel grey eyes. There was more to this man than he let on. So much more.

She could feel his thumb idly stroking her cheek, but surprisingly, she didn't mind his touch. Not after what he'd said. Slowly, he withdrew his hand, leaving her skin where he'd cupped it cold, but flushed. He coughed, breaking their gaze. "I have to get back to duty," he mumbled, turning and walking away, leaving a rather confused Morgain in his wake.

Abel had to get away from her maddening scent. _What are you doing, you idiot!_ he thought angrily to himself. _She's a prisoner! A hostage! Start forgetting it, and you could end up like Shy!_ Argh, he could still smell her!

Abel found himself craving cookies again, and made a detour on his way back to duty.

* * *

**_Lehorn--_****** Goldfish_ are a brand of little fish-shaped crackers here in the States. Pretty good, actually, though the adverts are as annoying as all hell._

_Music Playing: _Just Communication _by Two-Mix_

_…what?_


	10. Oracle

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Nine  
****Oracle**

* * *

Danaë had lost so much blood she could barely walk. Seraph scooped her into his arms and increased his pace. Krsna hurried after him, worried about the young medic. To his surprise, Seraph actually did lead them to the Oracle's apartment. They were greeted at the door by a little Indian girl holding a first aid kit, which she handed to Seraph. She grinned up at Krsna. "My name is Sati. Your name is Krsna. The Oracle says she will see you while Seraph takes care of Danaë."

He blinked, thrown totally off-guard by the child. "All right."

He followed her into a kitchen where a black woman was making cookies. The woman smiled at the girl. "Sati, why don't you go help Seraph?"

"Okay!" the girl said brightly, skipping off to do so.

The Oracle turned to him. "So, you're the one that has the mainframe all worked up. You should never have left, you know."

He shrugged. "I had to. I'd be dead, otherwise."

"It's dangerous for you out there, kiddo," the Oracle said calmly.

"Hey, I helped in the dock fight. They can trust me," he replied defensively.

"Then why haven't you told them?"

Krsna's jaw dropped. "I-"

"I know. You still have that small bit of doubt clawing away at you. Truth is, Krsna Aatmik, you made the right choice when you took that red pill. It coulda killed you, but you survived and you made it to the outside. And now just look at you."

Krsna smiled a bit. "I belong there. Zion - no, the _Logos_ - is my home now."

"That's right. However, Krsna, that doesn't mean there's no danger to you outside this Matrix. You're not the only one out there."

"What?" Krsna cried, startled.

"I can't tell you who he is," the Oracle stated, "but I _can_ tell you who he works for."

"The Frenchman, right?"

The old woman nodded. "Take care, Krsna. He knows about you, and he will not hesitate to use you as his scapegoat."

The Indian hissed something in Farsi, then thought to ask, "What about Seraph? Doesn't he-"

"Not anymore. He came to me not long after Shyama left, seeking a way to escape the Frenchman. I provided him one, but he chose instead to stay and protect me. Seraph can be... difficult to predict, even for an old woman like me."

She put the cookies in the oven and removed her mitts. "They'll be done by the time I'm finished talking to your friend." He followed her out, seeing that Ghost and Niobe had arrived, Niobe anxiously looking over her young recruit as Ghost helped Seraph finish patching Danaë up. The Oracle smiled at the captain and first mate, who nodded in return, then said to Seraph, "Bring her to the back room, would you?" He nodded slightly and rose with her in his arms.

"I can walk," Danaë protested.

"No, you can't, honey," the Oracle replied as they towards the back. Soft singing caught Krsna's ear, and he turned to Sati, who was singing.

_"Ásato mā sád gamaya  
__"Támaso mā jyótir gamaya  
__"Mrtyór mamŕtam gamaya."_

She repeated her slow song, and Krsna automatically translated it without thinking. "From delusion lead me to truth... from darkness lead me to light... from death," he paused, looking at Niobe and Ghost, his expression unreadable, "lead me to immortality."

Sati continued her song, and Krsna kept translating, that same odd expression in his eyes.

_"Vidyām cāvidyām ca yas  
__"Tad vedobhayam saha  
__"Avidyayā mrtyum tirtvā  
__"Vidyayāmrtam aśnute."_

"He who knows both knowledge and action, with action overcomes death and with knowledge reaches immortality." It was almost as if the young man was in a trance.

---------

Link stared at Krsna's monitors. "Hey, Sparky, you ever seen patterns like these?"

"Only in a book," the other operator replied after a minute. "It was showing the neural patterns of someone under hypnosis."

"What the hell is that little program _doing_ to him?"

---------

Sati's song had sped up.

_"Yasmin dyauh prthivī cāntariksam otam manah saha prānaiś ca sarvaih tam evaikam jānatha ātmānam anyā vācah vimuñcatha amrtasya esah setuh."_

"In him are woven the sky and the earth and all the regions of the air, and in him rest the mind and all the powers of life. Know him as the One and leave aside all other words. He is the bridge of immortality."

Niobe exchanged a look with Ghost. "It's like she's singing about Neo, in a way."

"She is," Seraph answered. The pair turned to the guardian program. "She says she took the phrases from a Hindu holy text, choosing the ones that seemed most like him. She says that it is her tribute to the One."

_"Bhidyate hrdayagranthiś  
__"Chidyante sarvasamśayāh  
__"Ksīyante cāsya karmāni  
__"Tasmin drste parāvare."_

"And when he is seen in his immanence and transcendence, then the ties that have bound the heart are unloosened, the doubts of the mind vanish, and the law of Karma works no more."

Sati stopped singing, looking at Krsna curiously. After a moment, Krsna snapped out of his trance, visibly shaken. "What's wrong, Kris?" Niobe asked him.

"My grandmother... used to sing that to me, when I was very young."

Neither Ghost nor Niobe saw the odd, scrutinising look Seraph gave him. Sati was confused, then distracted as they all heard a bell jingle. "Shyama!" she cried happily.

"What!?" Krsna cried at the same time Seraph demanded, "_Where!?_" Both turned to her and saw a confused little program hugging a black cat. Neither Niobe nor Ghost knew what to make of that. Krsna sank against the wall, mumbling in his native tongue, while Seraph had placed a hand just above where his heart would be, if programs had them.

"Sati, could you not have chosen her another name?" Seraph asked weakly.

She shrugged. "If she had been a boy kitty, I would have named her Krishna."

Niobe and Ghost looked from girl to Krsna, who wearily raised his head and answered, "Krishna is the name of one of the most powerful Hindu gods, coming from the word _krsna_, meaning black or dark. Shyama is a goddess of the Jain religion, the name coming from the word _śyāma_, which means the same thing as _krsna_. And yes, I was named for the god Krishna." His head slumped down once more as the Oracle emerged with a weakened, stunned Danaë.

"She's still suffering from blood loss, but she's a good kid." Seraph picked the girl up gently as she slid into half-consciousness. "You need to get her back on board as soon as you can," the Oracle said. "Niobe, if you take the back roads to the highway, you can avoid the Merovingian's programs."

Niobe nodded, already making plans in case they were caught again. "Krsna," the boy looked up at the Oracle, "think about what I told you." He nodded as he rose to his feet.

Sati tugged at his sleeve, holding a switchblade and a disk in her hand. "This is for Danaë when she wakes up. Have your operator upload this for the training program she'll need." She reached into her pocket and produced a key, which she then handed to Niobe. "This is for you. It goes to your new car."

Ghost was next. He crouched down to her level as she handed him a gun with a bright smile, saying, "Any bullets you put in here will alter according to the program you hit them with. For werewolves, they will turn into silver; for vampires, they will become very small wooden stakes; and they will even work against the Twins." Only the strictest self-control kept Zen Ghost's jaw from falling open. She then kissed him on the cheek, saying, "That was from Trinity. She doesn't like you being sad all the time."

Ghost was stunned as she returned to Krsna, handing him a small object. "You will need this for your project," she told him seriously. He grinned. "Thanks. I'll see what I can do with it." He shoved it in his pocket before Niobe or Ghost could see what it was.

She then went back to Niobe and handed her three disks. "These are for Morpheus, Link, and Sparks."

The Oracle smiled at Sati. "She's been giving gifts to those of you she likes. She even came up with one for AK when the _Mjolner_ came through last year."

Niobe and Ghost exchanged looks. Sparks had often bemoaned the fact that he couldn't have any of the Oracle's cookies, though they were unable to tell if he was serious or joking. This little program could provide gifts even to operators? That was interesting.

"Good luck, all of you," the Oracle said. "However, Ghost?" He looked back. "Avalon will be needing your assistance in about a week. She will escape the château, but she will need your help to keep those programs from catching her."

He nodded, holstering his new gun and removing Danaë from Seraph's arms. "Thank you, Oracle."

"Your new car is in the parking lot!" Sati cried as they walked out.

They made their way to it, and Niobe grinned. "James Bond, eat your heart out," she smiled as she caressed the hood of the black car. There was no brand name, no maker, nothing to say what kind it was. It seemed to be a sort of hybrid.

She slid into the driver's seat as Ghost and Krsna got Danaë strapped in, then strapped in themselves. "Let's get this show on the road," Niobe grinned.


	11. Nightmare

**Matrix: Legacy  
****Ten  
****Nightmare**

* * *

"You're serious, Sabé?" Gunner asked. "A librarian?"

Betsabé Seferino nodded. "Yup."

'Why?' Morgain signed.

"Because, dear Avvy, who would suspect a sweet little librarian of computer crime?" Sabé grinned. The petite Hispanic woman was a clever hacker who went by the alias _Horizon_. She was trying to do a follow-up on the Trinity job by cracking the local IRS database. It was bound to be harder, now that over fifteen years had passed since the hacking. Betsabé, upon learning Morgain's birthdate, had dramatically proclaimed that the Trinity job had been the herald of Morgain's conception after doing the math and realising she had been born nine months afterward.

She therefore occasionally called Morgain her 'IRS angel'.

Sabé was two years' Morgain's senior and was currently "dating" Gunner, meaning she was using him to get into a hacker club known as the _Freedman_. They had recently started bringing Morgain along so they could show off her dancing talent. They never mentioned to the owners that Morgain was only fifteen, but the owner/bartender Alex never served her alcohol (which she hated anyway) and the owner/bouncer Joe kept the pervs off her back, so it was all right in the end.

Looking casually downstairs, Morgain saw Joe and Alex talking worriedly. It was odd for either man to be worried, especially Straight-Face Joe. Used to reading lips, she saw what was going on, at least from Alex's side.

"_Could we go to the Merovingian?" _

Joe answered, and Alex sighed. "_Yeah, you're right. By now, the Smith anomaly has probably taken the _château_. It would make the most sense, now that he's got the fortuneteller. Rumour has it he got the old man, too."_

Joe looked up suddenly, staring at the door, then signalled to his brother.

"_Shit! _He's_ here?_"

Morgain looked to Gunner and Sabé. 'Trouble's coming. Time to split.'

The trio rose and made their way downstairs, but before they could even step towards the back exit, both doors flew open and a stream of suited men entered the club. Morgain's eyes widened as she realised that they all had the same face. "_¡La mierda santa!_" Sabé cried, seeing the same thing.

"Holy shit!" Gunner cried, repeating her expletive in English as they saw one of the same-faced men slam his hand literally into Alex's chest, silver gunk running away from the point of entry and crawling over him.

"Alex!" Joe cried, leaping forward to aid his brother only to be impaled on another hand.

The gunk vanished from both brothers, revealing more of the same-faced man. Gunner reached inside his trench coat and drew out a pair of Czech Skorpions, what he jokingly called his 'terrorist guns'. There was no joking in his manner as he calmly opened fire into the crowd of suits. "Horizon, Avvy, run!" he ordered. "Take my bike!"

Horizon, used to quick escapes, pulled out a pistol of her own - a Beretta Inox - grabbed Morgain's wrist, and yanked the startled girl after her, firing at a window as she ran. One of the suits grabbed Morgain's waist-length braid, but Horizon dropped her Inox, drew a switchblade, and cleanly cut it through her friend's hair just above the hand, freeing Morgain as they went through the space where the large window had been. Horizon screamed as a bullet pierced her thigh, but she tossed Morgain the key to Gunner's motorcycle.

"Keep going, _chica_," she gasped. "Don't stop."

'Sabé -'

"Go, damn it!"

Tears streaming down her face, Morgain obeyed. She didn't get very far; a bullet hit one of the tires, pitching her over the handlebars. Luckily, she managed to twist so that she landed on her shoulder, not her head. Wincing in pain - her shoulder had been dislocated - she staggered to her feet and tried to run. One of the suits caught her, holding the struggling girl. "Don't worry, _chica_," he drawled, "it'll be all over soon."

He plunged his hand into her arm, and Morgain's mouth opened in a silent scream of non-pain as sheer _cold_ spread throughout her body, overtaking her, piercing her mind, destroying her psyche-

She hit the ground with a thud, fighting the entangling silk sheets. A dream, Morgain's panicking mind thought, just a dream. It had seemed so _real_, though, like it was a memory. Panting, scared, she clutched her pillow like a lifeline and took stock of her surroundings. Same room, same place, same bloody _château_.

There was a thin line of light from under the door to the library; Cain and Abel were probably watching their stupid movies again. Suddenly preferring their company to her empty room and that nightmare, she silently entered the library.

Surprisingly enough, all that was on the TV was a blue screen, meaning that whatever cheesy horror flick they were watching (_Brotherhood of the Wolf_, according to the DVD box) was over but the TV'd not been turned off. She found the remote and did so, then turned to look at her supposed guards. Both had a distinctly Germanic air about them, though Cain looked slightly Oriental as well.

They _were_ cute, she admitted to herself, at least when they were asleep and harmless, like now. Especially Abel. Drawn by the small patch of fuzz on his chin, she walked to him, not seeing Cain's brown eyes open and watch her. She didn't realise that the smell of her fear had woken him, and Cain decided to see what the girl was doing. He didn't want to get up if he didn't have to.

Kneeling on the floor near Abel, she gently put the tip of her index finger against the soul patch, oddly enchanted by it. It was soft and fuzzy. She loved the feel of it. _Why_, she wondered, _were you being so nice to me yesterday? Why did you encourage me like you did?_ Her hand drifted to his golden brown hair, which was as soft as the soul patch. Oddly enough, the consistency reminded her of the consistency of Lobo's fur, Lobo being Horizon's half-wolf, half-husky. She'd never felt such thick hair on a man. Abel was really a fascinating person to look at.

She slid down so that she was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the couch he slept on, clutching the pillow to her chest. Eventually, she also fell asleep.

Cain, grinning, rose from his place and contemplated how to cause trouble. Obviously Avalon was getting a crush on his cousin; the little touchy-feely show right there was proof enough of that. Now, to do this properly....

Cain slowly, gently picked the girl up and deposited her on the couch, settling her against Abel. To his delight, Abel's arms immediately wrapped around her. Still moving slowly, Cain removed the pillow from Avalon's arms and grinned to see her shift, turning more towards Abel and snuggling closer, her head resting against his shoulder, one of her hands coming to rest lightly on Abel's chest.

_Perfect_, Cain thought, returning to his couch after flipping off the light. Odd, he could still smell her fear. He'd never smelt fear that lasted this long after the initial release. No matter. Hopefully he'd wake first and get a good look at Abel's expression when he awoke and realised he wasn't alone....

Cain snickered as he drifted back off to sleep.

---------

It was Abel's stomach that woke him. He groaned, realising that he wanted cookies again. His nose twitched, and he realised that Avalon's scent was extremely close, though the mist was stronger than the vanilla for once. It took him a moment longer to realise that he couldn't feel his arm and that there was a woman curled up beside him.

He opened his eyes to see the sable crown of Avalon's head. No way in hell would she have ended up here willingly. Abel's eyes fell on Cain, who had a smirk on his sleeping face. Grey eyes narrowed, the small werewolf gently disentangled himself from Avalon without waking her and stalked to his cousin.

Cain awoke to a pillow in the face and an irate Abel. "What the hell were you thinking!?" he hissed angrily. "You trying to get us both in trouble with him again?"

"He wouldn't have found out," Cain yawned, "just like the last time."

Abel snarled and grabbed his cousin's hair, forcibly turning his head to face towards a camera, which he pointed to. "He's going to find out. Who's on camera duty?"

"The Twins are," came another voice. "It's about time you two slackers woke up."

The pair of werewolves turned to see the a man with auburn hair lounging against the wall. "Matthias," Cain greeted the former Agent Brown. He nodded to them in greeting and made his way over to their location.

Unlike the other rogue Agents, Brown had not opted to continue to wear the standard Agent garb. Instead, he dressed more to his new position as one of the Merovingian's bodyguard programs: Black slacks, a long-sleeved button-up shirt of a dark forest green, a black trench coat very similar to Cain's, and of course the silver ring worn by all of the Merovingian's men. Oddly enough, the former Agent no longer wore sunglasses.

"You realise it's only a matter of time before my former colleagues try to get to her?" he said, gesturing to the sleeping girl.

Cain and Abel exchanged looks. "What the hell do you mean, Matthias?" Abel asked.

Brown shrugged. "Certain ex-colleagues of mine have gone rogue, as I myself did. They may believe Avalon to be Trinity."

Cain groaned. "How in the nine hells did they get that idea?"

Brown gave Cain a pointed look, "Some of the 'less intelligent' upgrades have not realised that Trinity is dead. Word among them is that the Merovingian is holding the infamous Trinity hostage."

It was Abel's turn to groan. "Great. Now we have to worry about Exiled Agents?"

"Oh, it gets better," Brown said. "All of the Exiled Agents, especially Jackson, Johnson, and Thompson, hate Trinity with a passion. Every time they tried to get her, she'd escape, often at the last possible second. It was... frustrating beyond words."

"There's no way they'd pass up a chance to get at her if she can't leave the Matrix," Abel said softly.

"But this is the _château_. They can't get in here," Cain answered.

Before they could begin to bicker, Brown spoke two words: "Skeleton key."

"Oh," Cain began.

"Shit," Abel finished. They exchanged looks, then Abel walked to the couch, scooping Avalon up in his strong arms. "I'm gonna drop her off and get some food. We can warn the Twins and spread the word about possible rogue Agents." Brown and Cain nodded, waiting as Abel carried her into the her own room, tucking her gently into bed and brushing some of her sable locks away from her face.

He smiled a little, then sniffed the air. Fear? That wasn't unusual, true, but fear spoor this old was very odd. It occurred to him that Cain would not have gone out of his way to pull a prank like he had by carrying Avalon from her room to the library. No, her fear had to have driven her to the library - to them.

What could have scared her _that_ badly?

About to walk away, his grey eyes suddenly saw the mark on her upper arm, almost a scar. He knew that mark well. Brown had it, Cain had it, Tiger and Seth had it, he had it... all the programs the anomaly Smith had assimilated had borne that mark. Hell, even one of the Twins had one. They all had nightmares about the assimilation, of course; it was to be expected. And after the nightmares, their respective marks would ache, would stand out. But the marks, the memories of that wretched week had been completely wiped from the memories of the coppertops.

Why did she still have one? How could she remember her own assimilation? Abel found himself growling at the thought of Smith hunting her down and turning her into one of _him_, and quickly calmed himself. Turning on his heel and walking out, Abel ignored Cain and Brown's questioning glances and said, "I want cookies. Anyone else?"

* * *

_Special thanks to Lady Deakin for her help with some of Brown's dialogue. _


	12. Librarian

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Eleven  
****Librarian**

* * *

"Gunner, _mi amigo,_ are you sure you're all right?" Horizon asked her burly friend.

He sighed. "I'm just worried about Avvy."

She nodded. "I am too, but what can we do? We're good, but neither of us would last very long against his bodyguards, especially if those rumours are true like you said."

"Hey, all I know is that I shot two of them between the eyes - one of whom had already taken the entirety of one of my clips to the chest - and both of them got up afterwards. Then I shot at another two and they fucking _dematerialised._ And then I was on the opposite side of the city by walking through two doors."

Horizon sighed. She would have blamed this memory on drug-induced hallucinations, but she knew well that know matter how connected he was to the drug cartel he said he wasn't, Gunner did not use them. He wasn't about to leave any trail for the cops to use.

And as Gunner never lied this outrageously, she knew his story had to be true, amazing as it was. "Don't worry," she reassured him. "Avvy's a smart kid. She'll get herself out of that mess. Now help me with this box."

Gunner seized on the new topic gratefully as he pulled a heavy box from the U-Haul. "Horizon, are you sure about this move?" he asked.

By now, this conversation could have been scripted. In fact, Avalon had taken to reciting it along with them in sign language.

Horizon grinned at him. "For the nth time, Gunner, yes, I'm sure."

"But I don't like you being in this part of town. It's not exactly the best place for pretty girls, especially young ones."

"Gunner, I'm nineteen years old and a black belt in _aikido_, as well as a dead shot with those Inoxes you gave me. I think I can handle myself." The conversation continued as Gunner carried the box of books upstairs, Horizon right behind him with her smallish TV. It was interrupted as Gunner's cell phone went off.

Horizon snickered at the expression on his face when he realised that it was playing the hokey-pokey. "God damn it, stop hacking the rings on my cell phone!" he told her before answering. Horizon could see by the tightening of his dark face that the call was not a social one. "All right, I'll be right in," he said at last before hanging up.

"Horizon-" he started, but she shushed him.

"Go do your job. I'll be fine on my own. You already got the furniture in."

He nodded and got on his motorcycle, revving up and racing away. Horizon sighed as he left. "Get out of there, Gunner," she said softly, mostly to herself. "It's gonna end up killin' you if you're not careful."

She set the TV down in her new apartment and dragged the box of books in as well before going back down for more boxes. She was almost done unloading anyway, Gunner had helped her with the important stuff. Horizon giggled as she recalled that her mother still thought she and the much-older Gunner were an item and that Gunner was her bitch.

In truth, while she and Gunner were good friends, they were also nothing more. Gunner seemed to be asexual, while Horizon herself was single and not, at the moment, looking. She was well pleased with the way her life was going: sophomore year of college, month two of her part-time job as librarian's assistant at a local elementary school, and still no sign of the FBI on her tail over her other job.

There was a reason why she'd moved to a lesser-income area of the City.

Horizon managed to drag her boxes of clothes upstairs - the elevator was out, she'd been told, _again_ - before returning for the last box, another one of book. A look inside made her groan as she realised that they were mostly hardcover.

After a lot of struggling, she got it inside. Resting for a moment, she eyed the stairs with trepidation before sighing and starting to battle the box once more. Horizon made it almost to her floor before the box shifted, throwing the petite woman off-balance. She toppled backwards with a sharp cry-

Only to feel a strong arm encircle her waist, holding her up straight. Another arm prevented the box from flying downstairs and potentially killing anyone climbing up. Wide-eyed, adrenaline pumping through her veins at her close call, she peered around the box to see her saviour: a very cute Chinese man.

He helped her the rest of the way and set the box down for her. "Are you all right?" he asked her, concern in his tone.

Horizon's legs had given way, and she was sitting on the stairs, recovering from that close call. "_Pienso que estaré en un minuto_," she said, not even realising that she was speaking Spanish. Fortunately, he seemed to understand her anyway.

"That is good. I am glad that Sati saw you downstairs, or else you might have been seriously injured."

She offered the man a weak smile. "Thanks for helping me out."

He gave her a polite bow. "It was my pleasure, Miss...?"

"Miss Seferino!" a child's voice cried happily as a little girl sprang upon the woman to give her a hug.

Horizon blinked in surprise, then grinned and hugged the child back. "Hey, brat! I didn't know you lived here." Sati drew back to smile brightly at her and nod.

"You two know each other?" the man's polite, accented voice asked.

Horizon nodded. "I'm the assistant librarian at Sati's elementary school. Her class I call the brats, the other class I call the twerps. Helps me tell 'em apart."

Sati's nod confirmed this. Obviously she and her classmates didn't mind being called 'brats'. "Sati is quite the little reader," Horizon added to him.

He nodded, smiling. "Yes, she has a voracious appetite for books. Sati, why don't you go see if those cookies are finished?"

"Okay!" she cried happily and ran off.

Man and teen exchanged tolerant smiles before Horizon offered him her hand. "I'm Betsabé Seferino, Sabé to my friends and Horizon to my very close friends." To her utter surprise, instead of shaking her hand the man drew it to his lips.

"Then I hope that we will be friends, Miss Sabé. I am Seraph, Sati's guardian," he said after kissing her hand.

Horizon blushed. "It's just Sabé, Mr. Seraph," she said quietly.

"Then you must call me Seraph," he countered, and she agreed. Then he released her hand. "Will you allow me to help you with that box?" he offered.

"Yes, thank you," she answered, still a bit stunned by the kiss. Seraph easily picked it up and asked her to lead the way. Horizon snapped out of her Seraph-induced stupor and showed him into the apartment. Once Seraph had set the box down, she had pounced on it and had it open, checking to make sure that the near fall hadn't harmed her precious books.

Seraph chuckled as she looked them over. "I'll shall take my leave of you now, Sabé," he said. "If you need any assistance, please do not hesitate to ask. Sati and I are three doors down from you."

"Thanks for the offer," Horizon grinned. Seraph bowed and left, then Horizon got around to settling in, pushing her furniture where she wanted it. "Now a man like that," she mused to herself, "I wouldn't mind marrying somewhere down the road."

---------

When Link and Sparks received their gifts from Sati, Sparks soberly proclaimed, "I am going to find some way to get in the Matrix and give that girl a big hug and as many dresses as she wants."

On Spark's disk was a program capable of seeing inside the backdoors of the system; on Link's was a program to crack the encryption surrounding the Merovingian's _château_ and make communications possible. Both operators set immediately to making copies for the other operators and put out a call to the _Mjolner_ so they could give AK his.

"I wonder if she knows how much easier she just made life for us operators," Link mused.

Ghost considered the P229 S that Sati had given him, the speedy little sedan she had given Niobe, and the gifts to the two kids. "I think she does," he said after a moment.

"I wonder why she's making these for us," Danaë said softly. She was bandaged from the effects of her battle with the Twin, but her injuries in the real world were much less severe - she had, however, gotten a talking-to from Niobe about remembering that the Matrix was not real so that her injuries would not harm her physical body. Niobe was privately convinced that Axel's wound from the Agents two years ago had been part of what had lost them the _Vigilant_: Axel had needed a heavy leg brace after the airport incident, and Commander Locke had been telling Soren for a year to get his rusty catwalks fixed.

She blinked back tears at their memory and said gruffly, "Because she likes us. What more reason does she need?"

---------

**_lehorin-- _******_Yes, it is, and yes, it does. You see, the words for _Neodämmerung_ came from a Hindu holy text. -nods-****_


	13. Agents

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twelve  
****Agents**

* * *

Sparks wasted no time in installing his and Link's gifts. He hated it when his crewmates travelled by The Corridor, hatedithatedithatedit....

"Scan the _château_ for any sign of Avalon," Ghost said just behind him.

"_Augh!_" Sparks yelped, leaping half out of his chair and banging his head against a monitor, which got a second yelp out of him. He whirled on the other man. "Dammit, Ghost, stop making like your name around me!" he scolded. Ghost shrugged an apology and repeated his query.

Sparks grinned. "Spying on the psychotic Frenchman," he half-sang as he, for the first time, got past the encryption surrounding the place. "Okay, they gave our girl a pretty nice room. It's nearly the size of the _Logos_; Frenchie must have a lot of room to spare. Looks like she just woke up, she's heading for the bathroom and-"

Sparks yelped as Ghost pulled him away from the monitors. "You're no fun," he pouted.

"And you're as lecherous as the Merovingian," Krsna added, appearing at Sparks' left elbow and giving him his second heart attack of the day.

"My heart can't take this," he muttered, stalking towards the medbay and muttering something about imminent cardiac arrest.

"Apparently I'm not the only person on this ship who has learned how Not To Be Seen," came Dana's quiet voice just behind him.

Krsna and Ghost heard Sparks shriek from the med bay, and Ghost smiled slightly while Krsna cracked up. "I knew it! I knew she was gonna do that!" Krsna howled in his laughter. Niobe stuck her head in, Link's right behind hers.

"What's going on in here?" she asked, giving the pair a 'Y'all Are Crazy' look.

"We're giving Sparks heart attacks," Krsna replied cheerfully. Link grinned and vanished. Seconds later there was another yelp from Sparks.

Niobe rolled her eyes. "You're children, all of you. Children!" She walked off.

Krsna chuckled and wandered to the monitors before Ghost could stop him. "Hmm, Sparky's a perv," he noted as he changed to a view of something else in the _château_.

"Here're some weird programs. One of 'em's readin' like a twisted Agent, but I can't figure out the other two." At the word _Agent_ Ghost was looking over the Indian's shoulder worriedly. It took him a moment to realise who he was seeing, and his fists clenched unconsciously. Cain and Abel... the werewolves who nearly spoiled everything. Thank God Abel'd gotten cold feet and backed out at the last moment... but not before they'd managed to capture him.

Ghost caught himself starting to flush in anger over that humiliating experience and calmed himself. The programs held no power over him here.

Krsna, utterly oblivious to Ghost's actions just behind him, continued looking around, starting a careful, minor hack. "Score! Cameras!" He grinned, rerouting the feed from one into a monitor and downloading everything on the tape, before rewinding it and watching it carefully.

"Whoa! She dances!"

Despite himself, Ghost looked.

His breath caught in his throat as he saw Avalon for the first time and his heart shattered once more. His mind had run off without him and had put Trinity in her place. His eyes saw Trinity dancing, saw Trinity flipping Abel the bird, saw Trinity wake from a nightmare and wander out of the room... saw Abel with her.

Despite all of Ghost's self-control, he could not stop a jealous, possessive growl from starting in his throat as he saw Abel stroking her face, whispering something, saw Abel carrying her into the room and tucking her into bed... saw him touching her, smelling her, holding her...

"..ost? Ghost!"

The first mate shook himself, getting a firm grip on reality. Krsna was looking at him worriedly. "Ghost, you all right? You kinda wigged out there."

"I'm fine," Ghost said gruffly. "Turn off the video."

"Ghost-"

"_Now_." His hands were clenching and flexing, longing for the gun Sati had given him. If that... _werewolf_ had hurt Trin- Avalon in any way, Ghost would derive the greatest of pleasures in killing him.

Krsna, worried, obediently switched back to the view of Avalon's room. She was out of the shower and dressed by now, in navy sweat pants and a pale blue baby t-shirt, according to the code. Krsna glared at the green script, rerouted the video feed again, and put the room live on a monitor. Ghost very carefully did not look at the video, watching instead the scrolling green script that comprised the code of the Matrix and told him she was dancing again.

Krsna saw the shadow outside her window just as Ghost read the change in code. "Shit!" Krsna yelled as Ghost's face grew tight with worry.

"An Agent... a rogue Agent."

---------

In the camera rooms, Seth and Tiger had bartered their way on duty again to get their daily fix of Young Attractive Human Woman Dancing In A Very Enticing Manner. Okay, so any sort of dancing was enticing to them - they were among the more old-fashioned of the Merovingian's men, excepting Seth's love of his Tommy Gun - but that didn't matter. It was still a pretty girl dancing.

It was Tiger with his vampire eyes who saw the shadow. "Oh, shit. Someone's stalking our girl."

Seth drew his eyes from Avalon and shot his partner a questioning look, then followed Tiger's gaze. "Fuck!" he yelped, grabbing his Thompson. "It's an Agent!"

---------

Morgain didn't realise anything was wrong until the glass door leading to the balcony shattered, heralding the arrival of a man in a brown suit. He, like the other Agent programs, was remarkable in that he was so very _unremarkable_, the sort of man you could meet on the street and mistake to be someone else entirely; he had One Of Those Faces.

Her eyes widened as he smiled ferally at her. "Well, Miss Davidson, we meet again."

He may have had One Of Those Faces, but Morgain knew she'd never seen him before. She took a step back as he stepped forward, adjusting his tie.

---------

Seth bolted to the halls, making for the girl's room. The door was bullet-proof, missile-proof, and Cujo-proof, but it sure as hell wasn't Seth-proof. He ran through the door without stopping to open it.

He readied his beloved Tommy Gun and hollered, "GET DOWN!" The girl half-turned, saw the gun, and dove for cover as he opened fire on the Agent.

---------

Cain, Abel, and Brown were eating and/or drinking in the kitchen when Brown twitched. "There's an Agent here," he murmured, reaching under his trench coat to assure himself that his new gun, a Glock , was there before rising to his feet. Seconds after he had done so, Tiger burst in. "There's an Agent in the kid's room!" he panted. "Seth's gone to slow him down."

Abel was off like a shot, Brown and Cain hot on his heels.

---------

Seth was absolutely stunned. He had emptied his entire Tommy at the Agent, and had only _grazed_ him. It had been less embarrassing with the One: Neo had simply stopped the bullets. But would Agents do that? _Nooooo_ they had to go employ super-human-speed and dodge every last friggin' bullet. Fucking Agents.

Seth dropped the Tommy Gun and charged at the Agent; like all the Merovingian's programs, he was trained in hand-to-hand combat. It didn't occur to him until after he'd been thrown across the room that this one could be one of the upgraded Agents meant to deal with the One specifically. The ones who'd only been running around for two or three days before the Matrix was reconfigured to Version 9.0

Then his back slammed into the desk that even Cujo would have trouble lifting. Seth felt his spine snap and had enough time to think, _Oh, shit; not again!_ before darkness closed in on him.

---------

Ghost and Krsna could only watch the unfolding drama in Avalon's room. While the Agent dealt with the strange program (Ghost noticed that the Tommy-carrying program had a code oddly similar to Seraph's), Krsna encouraged both the stranger, who he was calling 'Tommy' after the gun, and Avalon, who'd hidden herself after 'Tommy' had opened fire.

Kris swore in Punjabi. "Tommy's down!" he called, and Ghost could only watch hopelessly as the Agent - Agent Jackson, he saw - closed in on Avalon.

---------

Morgain had picked up the discarded Tommy Gun and was holding it awkwardly when the suited man found her. He smirked. "Come now, Miss Davidson, what can you hope to accomplish with that? The gun is empty."

_An empty gun is still a weapon_, Davis had once told her when teaching her the merits of automatic and sub-automatic machine guns. Morgain knew this well. As the man closed in on her, she swung it viciously at him. He caught it easily.

"Is that the best the infamous Trinity can come up with?" he asked condescendingly.

_No. Bastard_, she thought as she brought her knee up into his groin. He snarled a curse and grabbed her by the neck, lifting her effortlessly off the ground and increasing the pressure, cutting off her air supply. Morgain desperately pulled on the stranger's hand, but his grip was like steel and the pressure was increasing.

She could feel the pressure building up in her head as no air could pass to her lungs and no blood could pass through her veins... her ears heard a rushing sound... her vision was going dark....

---------

The door was bullet-proof, missile-proof, and Cujo-proof, but the walls sure as hell weren't. Cain, Abel, Tiger, and Brown each brought up an automatic assault rifle of varied types and let loose at the wall, forcing their way inside. Brown, as a former Agent, was the quickest of them and therefore the first inside.

His former colleague didn't have time to blink before Brown's smaller body crashed into him, prying his fingers off Avalon's neck. The girl fell limply to the floor, where Tiger caught her as Jackson threw Brown aside easily.

Cain and Abel advanced on Jackson, snarling as their bodies altered according to their programs: fur spread over their bodies, black for Cain and brown for Abel, as their faces elongated slightly and sharp teeth replaced their human-seeming ones; their ears shifted and drew up the sides of their heads, becoming wolf ears; yet they were still on their feet, still humanoid.

However, their strength, size, and speed had increased; oddly enough, while Cain was pure black, Abel had some grey fur mixed in with the brown.

As one, the werewolves set on Jackson, joined by Brown. Jackson might have been able to handle the half-transformed cousins on his own, but with another ex-Agent thrown in the mix, he stood no chance.

He managed to get Cain in a stranglehold, but the werewolf simply bit Jackson's arm, shattering the bone and taking a good chunk of skin with him as he pulled his head back, the Agent's blood running through the fur around his mouth. He then twisted and would have torn Jackson's throat out had Abel not pulled him away. "Matthias has him," he said softly, and he was right: Brown was wailing away at Jackson calmly, but with a determined expression. "I take it Jackson was the one who replaced Matthias?" Cain asked after spitting out some of Jackson's blood and flash.

Abel nodded, then they heard Tiger yell, "Abel! _She's not breathing!_"


	14. Not Unlucky

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Thirteen  
****Not Unlucky**

* * *

Abel whirled and ran for Tiger and Avalon, returning to his normal human appearance as he did so. Cain followed suit, trying to get the blood off his face and spitting out more of it, muttering in German. Abel snatched Avalon from Tiger's arms, cradling her close to his chest and putting a hand against her neck, checking for a pulse.

It was there, but fading. "_Scheiße_," he whispered, laying her on the floor and praising whoever had uploaded that first-aid regimen into him so many years ago. "I'm not letting her die," he said to no one in general as he gently tilted her head back, revealing rapidly bruising marks on her neck, and opened her mouth. He hesitated for a brief moment, then leaned forward, covering her mouth with his, and forced air into her lungs.

After a few breaths, he drew back, breathing for himself, and pushing on her chest to force that air out of her lungs. Tiger and Cain watched helplessly; Tiger, unable to take it, moved to where his friend's limp body lay to check on him. Rage burning in his brown eyes, Tiger turned on the Agent battle.

Jackson was doing better now that he was against a single Agent of an earlier version, but Brown was holding his own. The white-clad vampire simply rose and joined in the battle with no warning, determined to avenge the fallen Seth. Of course, Seth would simply be rebooted, but that wasn't the point. It was the principle of the thing.

The scent of blood was not improving the situation as far as both Cain and Abel were concerned. Their lesser, animal selves were reacting to the blood, especially Abel's: the time of his transformation was near. Abel was forcing air into Avalon's lungs again, drawing away again and panting; he wasn't taking enough air for himself. Cain pushed his cousin aside and gave her a solid thump to the chest, violently expelling the air from her lungs. About to yell at him, Abel stayed his tongue when Avalon drew in a shuddering gasp.

"Avalon!" He reached out and took her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. Her eyes opened, looking at him dazedly. She reached up, as if needing to be sure she wasn't having a death-dream, and touching his cheek. His eyes widened as hers closed and her hand fell to her side; she'd lost consciousness.

---------

"Score one for the Exiles," Krsna murmured. "They do a good job of keeping their hostages alive, don't they?" There was no answer, and he turned to where Ghost had been. Nothing but the empty chip Ghost had been holding when they'd first entered: It had been snapped in two, and Ghost's blood stained the cracked edges.

In awe, Krsna picked up the pieces and looked at them closely. "Damn," he said softly. _He's losing it_.

---------

Jackson was down, and it didn't look like he'd be getting up any time in the near future. Possibly the distant future. Apart from the missing chunk of his arm, he'd lost a good deal of "blood", mostly through a pair of holes in his neck.

That was how the Merovingian found them: trashed room, trashed body of a rogue Agent, broken body of one of his bodyguard programs, two more of those bodyguards with blood on their faces, mainly around their mouths, an ex-Agent staring at the vampire with an expression bordering on awe, and the other bodyguard holding the unconscious body of _his_ prisoner in his arms.

"What in ze _hell_ 'appened here!?" he demanded.

It was Tiger who answered, wiping the blood from his mouth with the sleeve of his red-stained jacket, anger and pain in his dark eyes. "An Agent, sir."

"I can see that," the Merovingian replied slowly, already at the end of his patience. Brown seized the conversation and took it farther, explaining the case of mistaken identity that had nearly had fatal results for Avalon. Once he'd finished, a muscle under the Merovingian's right eye was twitching rapidly.

His blue eyes fell on Tiger's fallen partner, and a slew of French curse words passed his lips. "Get him rebooted," he snapped at Brown and Tiger, then whirled on Cain and Abel. "As for you two, get her somewhere she can't run away from while ze room is fixed."

The four programs moved swiftly, Brown and Tiger grabbing Seth by his feet and arms and carrying him out while Cain and Abel made themselves - and Avalon - scarce. The Merovingian had a temper, and they wanted to be far away when it let loose.

---------

Danaë had kept Sparks from killing Link over that fourth scare and sent the two of them away when Ghost came in, blood pooling in his hand. Much to the first officer's relief, she didn't ask him how he'd gotten hurt, just silently cleaned the deep, jagged cut and bandaged it with her small, cool hands.

"Thank you," Ghost said softly when she tied off the bandage. He caught one of her hands as she withdrew. "Danaë... are you going to be returning to the Matrix at all?"

She shook her head. "Only if Niobe orders me to," she told him. "I was taken on as medic, not as back-up." She smiled a bit bitterly. "Deadbolt didn't want to let me on in the first place, you know."

Ghost allowed himself to be distracted. "Why?"

She shrugged. "I'm not a hacker." He knew that was bullshit, but didn't press her. People didn't like to talk about their lives before being unplugged to the point of not telling others their real names. For the podborn, telling someone their real name was a sign of strong trust.

Krsna and Locke were, as far as he knew, the only exceptions, and Krsna's name sounded like an alias, so nobody really knew the difference.

Down the ship, they heard Sparks shriek and then yell, "Niobe!" Danaë giggled. "Looks like Niobe couldn't resist scaring him." Ghost nodded. In his mind, though, the fight still replayed. At least he was seeing Avalon now, not Trinity.

He turned to leave, but Danaë caught his wrist. "Ghost, promise me something."

"What?" he asked curiously, looking at the redhead once again.

"Can you remember that she's not Trinity?"

"What?"

Danaë repeated her query, looking at him seriously, then added, "Forgetting that might get you killed." She was worried, he could read it in her eyes. And she was right.

He put on a reassuring smile for her sake and told her, "I'll do what I can."

She smiled back. "Thanks, Ghost." He ruffled her hair and turned to go.

"And Ghost? Just because I'm not going into the Matrix doesn't mean I won't invade your Zen place when you start moping."

Ghost laughed then. "You just want to be beaten down again."

"I need training. I keep betting with Sparks, I get more programs uploaded."

"True."

"And I get the practice I need."

"I concede the point," he told her, ruffling her hair one more time before quitting the medbay and returning to the operating room. He needed to talk to the enigmatic Krsna.

---------

The troupe had retreated to Cain and Abel's rooms after dropping Seth's body off to be rebooted - and after Cain and Abel remembered where it was. "When was the last time you two were in here?" Tiger asked in disbelief as they finally got the door open via Brown's shoulder.

The werewolves thought about it. "Not since the Invasion," Cain said at last.

Tiger stared at him. "That was during the fourth Matrix!"

"_Ja_," Abel answered, wandering to the dust-covered laptop and initiating a program to clear the room of dust before setting Avalon down on one of the beds.

Brown blinked. "You two don't use your room?"

"They're infamous for it," Tiger told the confused ex-Agent.

"We sleep where we fall," Abel shrugged as Cain added, "which is generally the library." Brown shook his head, and the werewolf cousins grinned. "It's the wolf in us," Cain said easily, Abel chiming in with, "plus we're used to roaming."

At this Tiger rolled his eyes. "You two stopped roaming a week before the turnover into the third Matrix, and you know it."

"But we grew up doing it," Abel pointed out.

Brown was intrigued. "Grew up? They started you off as child programs?"

Cain and Abel exchanged glances. "We don't know. We.. woke up, I guess, with no memory of ourselves except our names and that we were somehow related. We didn't look too much alike, so we called ourselves cousins. Then people came in and tried to kill us, we discovered we could turn into wolves, and we killed them and fled," Cain explained.

"We wandered for awhile until the Merovingian found us, and wound up here," Abel added, then grinned. "And how we caught his attention."

Tiger scowled. "You just had to bring it up, didn't you?"

"What do you care?" Cain asked. "You weren't there," Abel put in.

Tiger grumbled in Chinese and the werewolves grinned at each other.


	15. l33t sk1llz

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Fourteen  
****l33t sk1llz**

* * *

Horizon arrived late to work. Fortunately for her, the librarian, Mrs. Sanchez, was understanding about it due to Horizon's youth, move, and general disorganisational skills. She got there before the kids did, and that was enough for Mrs. Sanchez.

Later, Horizon decided it was a good thing that Gunner had gotten her that concealed weaponry licence.

Nothing happened for most of the day, until the fifth-grade class containing Sati came in. Then, it seemed everything happened at once. Mrs. Sanchez was called to the office, leaving Horizon in charge of the Brats. Then a man with long, greasy hair came to the door, claiming that he was here to take Sati to her doctor's appointment. "_¡La mirada, niños, Severus Snape ha llegado!_" **(1)** she muttered, earning a snicker from Carlos Rodriguez.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said in English, "but I can't let you take Sati until I see your visitor's pass and some identification." He tried to argue the point, but she stood firm. "Carlos," she told the boy, "_Vaya obtenga Sati. Dígala esconder_."** (2)** He nodded and ran off, and Horizon sweetly said, "Maybe we should take this outside?"

The man smiled predatorily. "Yes, we should." _And if you think I didn't see that gun under your coat, mister_, she thought, _I'd say you're in for a world of hurt, especially if you think I'm letting you take that sweet little girl anywhere. My l33t f1ght1ng sk1llz will 0wnz j00._

No sooner had Horizon shut the door than the man drew a gun on her. Horizon moved swiftly, wrapping her left arm around his gun arm and snapping it with applied pressure - _Thank you, Gunner_ - and drawing her own gun, pressing it into his gut. "Nice try," she said softly. "I don't know who you are, pal, but I know you aren't that girl's guardian. The research you did was impressive, though."

The man laughed. "Silly child. Your bullets can't harm me." Horizon didn't have a chance to think on that as sharp pain tore into the side of her neck. She screamed in pain and the man reacted swiftly, grabbing her gun from her hand and firing it. Horizon twisted as he fired, and the bullet only hit her side, nothing vital.

However, it was enough to effectively put her out of commission. Unlike various movie heroes and Gunner, Horizon couldn't function well when shot. Groaning, she sank against the wall, trying to push past the pain. The man grinned, pinning her to the wall, tilting her head up and going for her neck again.

Horizon screamed again as his teeth sank into her flesh...

And he was pulled away without warning. Horizon groaned, hearing the sounds of a battle, but she couldn't get past the pain to see what was happening. It seemed an eternity before she heard a familiar voice asking her if she was all right.

"Apart from the bullet in my side, you mean, Seraph?" she asked him with a weak smile before passing out.

Filled with anger towards Vlad for injuring an innocent, Seraph called to Sati, who came at once. "Miss Seferino!" she cried.

"Hush," he told her gently. "She will recover." He carefully picked the girl up as the school authorities came racing down the hall with the police. "The situation is under control," Seraph said calmly, "but Miss Seferino needs medical attention."

Seraph unashamedly made use of what Sati, having seen the original Star Wars trilogy thanks to her friend Michelle "Mike" D'Angelo, called his "Jedi Mind-Trick," though it was truly no such thing. Seraph simply had a way of inspiring trust in others - except for the rebels of the Matrix. But then, they were all paranoid.

Jedi Mind-Trick or no, it got the job done. Within ten minutes, he was walking away, Sati at his side and Betsabé in his arms. For a long moment he considered simply healing her - he knew he could - but then he might either have to explain reality to her and face her possible rage, hatred, or fall into insanity, or he would have to wipe her memory.

Either choice was too risky for a non-fatal wound.

He'd take her to the hospital. He was heading there anyway, to see a wounded Potential with a hacker alias of Jailbait, of all names.

---------

Morgain woke slowly to a low conversation. She was lying on a bed that was not the one that had been loaned out to her - for one thing, the sheets were cotton. For another, the room was darker due to a lack of windows. For a third, five men were sitting or standing in the vicinity. Cain was lounging on the bed across from her, the Oriental Tiger sprawled beside him; a man she'd not yet met was leaning back against the wall; the long haired man who'd tried to save her was leaning back against the bed Cain and Tiger were splayed on, and Abel was not in her sight, meaning he was near her.

Then she realised her head was in his lap.

_Men_, she thought.

She closed her eyes, thinking that maybe if she listened in, she'd get what was going on. "We're going to have to do something about the security," Tiger said. "This is the first breach since the Invasion."

"Not exactly true," Cain answered. "There was that little situation with the crew of the _Logos_ two years ago, remember?"

"And whose fault was that?" Tiger shot back.

"Children," rumbled the bass of the long-haired man, "let's not get caught up in species rivalry. I can never understand why the vamps and wolves hate each other so much."

"Programmed into us, probably," Abel replied. _Programmed?_ "This coming from the fallen angel," he added in a mutter.

There was a scuffle that ended with Abel's lap being pulled out from under her head. There was silence as they all watched her for a moment, as if trying to make sure she was still out of it. At last, the man said heatedly, "Never. Mention. That. Ever. Got it?"

"All right, all right. Yeesh, Seth. No need to get touchy about it. You're nearly as bad as Wingless used to be."

"Wolf," Seth growled warningly, then the other man she didn't know at last chimed in.

"Down, boys. Both of you. All of us have stuff we don't like to talk about. We might as well leave them buried."

"Compared to us, Matthias, you're a baby," Cain pointed out.

"Yes. But you have shells. I don't want to talk about my current host."

"What, is it a kid?" Tiger asked, half-serious.

"Yes."

Dead silence. Morgain opened one eye to see that they were all staring at him.

"I was about to be deleted, so I abandoned my host and took the closest one to my chosen escape route. I didn't realise until I'd accessed the memories that it was child."

"You came here for a shell," Seth said in the silence following that.

"Partly, yes," 'Matthias' answered softly, "but also to escape deletion. Do you know how often Agents are upgraded? All the Smith anomaly did was speed up the process. I would have wound up here eventually."

Morgain was very confused now. It was like they were speaking in code or something. She knew one thing: after that little attack on her, she was not going to be staying here much longer. _How many enemies did Carrie _have_, anyway?_ she wondered idly, before she returned to going over her plan. _Well, with my l33t rnn1ng sk1lls, I might be able to get away. Might._

"You do realise she's awake, don't you?" Matthias said after Cain commented on him being their Agent-detector.

Dead silence, once more. Morgain didn't even try to hide the glare she shot the blank-faced man. "How long has she been awake?" Cain demanded raggedly.

"Not very long, maybe a minute," he glibly lied, still blank. Morgain blinked, but then Abel was there, actual concern on his face.

"Are you all right?" he asked her softly, hand brushing her face before resting against her bruised neck. "Jackson got you pretty good."

'I'll be fine,' she signed irritably, jerking away from his gentle touch. She did _not_ like it, she didn't she didn't she didn't. 'Where am I?'

"Our room. Well, mine and Abel's really," Cain put in. "Almost forgot where it was."

The long haired Seth rolled his eyes, and Morgain pulled away from Abel to walk to him. 'Thanks for trying to save me,' she signed. He smiled, though she couldn't see his eyes behind his sunglasses. "There are too few talented dancers out there to just let an Agent kill you."

There was a low growl behind them; everyone turned to stare at the source. Abel was looking innocent, as was Cain. No telling which had growled... though the grin on Tiger's face suggested to the other men that he knew and would be ribbing the growler later.

"We are to return her to her room," said a British-accented voice. Morgain jumped and turned to see those albino twins again.

Cain and Abel both jumped to their feet. "You _knock_ before you enter!" they howled in unison, glaring at the Twins.

One of them grinned. "No. We don't," he purred as the other one approached Morgain.

She didn't even see Abel move.

He was just suddenly between them.

"I'll take her back," he said, voice carrying an odd growl underneath the words. Morgain couldn't see that he was baring his teeth at the Twins, and that his teeth were much pointier than normal. The first Twin stepped forward to join his brother, and Cain moved to be by his cousin. Strong hands drew Morgain away from the four men and out of the line of fire; she looked up into the face of Matthias, who apparently had his own agenda to follow.

"As much as those two tend not to get along with Tiger's crowd, they hate the Twins even more," he mused. "Very interesting."

"Been that way since the Invasion. Maybe even before then. Cain, Abel and the Twins were found within a week of each other, you know," Seth put in as the tension continued to build. He casually reached for his Tommy Gun; it was a comfort thing.

"I say we take her down ourselves," Tiger muttered. "They'll never notice, and the testosterone level in here is enough to give the coppertop a beard."

"Maybe you should stay here, then," Seth told him, grinning.

"And get caught up between the ghosts and the wolves? I thank you, but no. Let's go before one of 'em changes."

The trio hustled Morgain out of the danger zone; so intent were they on each other the Twins and the cousins didn't notice. "Once they were halfway there, Matthias said, "Why don't you two go back and make sure they don't kill each other? The Frenchman's in bad enough a mood as it is; I doubt he'll be happy with having to reboot any more of us today. Or this year."

Tiger and Seth exchanged wordless glances, then nodded and moved away. Matthias continued to move Morgain down the hall. However, he spoke to her softly. "If you're going to get out, do it soon, before the Frenchman thinks to move you away from any windows. Sooner or later he'll remember that Trinity _is_ your sister, and she was infamous for escaping despite overwhelming odds."

She looked up at him curiously to see a wry smile on his face. "She has earned my respect many times over since I went on-line. I have no doubt you have the same courage she does."

'Why are you-'

"Because I can."

Confused, she let him lead her to her room.

* * *

**(1) **"_¡La mirada, niños, Severus Snape ha llegado!_" -- "Look, children, it's Severus Snape!"

**(2)**"_Vaya obtenga Sati. Dígala esconder_." -- "Go get Sati. Tell her to hide."


	16. Escape

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Fifteen  
****Escape**

* * *

It was time, and Morgain didn't have much on her hands. It had taken her awhile to get everything she needed without arousing suspicion and a lot of sheer, dumb luck to keep from getting caught. She'd made herself a sort of make-shift backpack out of a pillowcase and torn clothing and stuffed it mainly with scrounged food, which consisted mostly of Goldfish and a few boxes of Milk Duds. She had even managed to score a few half-litre bottles of Mountain Dew via late night binge drinking of caffeine and saving the bottles. Considering the winter season and the mountain climate, she also stuffed in warm clothes when she could.

It didn't hurt that the people who were supposed to be watching her closely to prevent such things seemed unusually entranced by her dancing. Did no one here go clubbing?

She also thought that Matthias had had something to do with the transfer of her purloined goods to the balcony, including the long rope she'd managed to piece together over many long, noisy, sleepless nights.

Going back over her eating and sleeping habits of the past... week and a half? Two weeks? Whatever, it was no wonder she'd had a nightmare like that when the only decent meal she ate was at that restaurant once every other day or so and when she averaged three hours or so of sleep a night.

Whatever, soon she'd be home - if she had to hitchhike to do it, she would - and would be able to sleep, sleep, sl33p! She gave herself a mental slap for mentally using the 'netslang known as 'l33t sp34k' as she wandered outside. She'd made it a habit to stand outside, watching the stars for an hour or so before coming in and changing for bed. That gave her sixty minutes, maybe less, to get down and out of here. White tickled her nose and she looked up.

_Shit_.

It was starting to snow.

_Look on the bright side. It'll cover your tracks. God, I'm gonna be cold._ As soon as humanly possible, she was going to layer on those clothes she'd shoved in her pack. Taking up the end of her rope, she tied it to a corner of the balcony where no windows were in the way, climbed over, and walked her way down, keeping a tight hold on the rope.

Halfway down, she felt something give and looked up; one of her knots had loosened. _Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit_ became a mantra for her as she rappelled faster, praying she'd reach bottom before the rope gave way.

Yeah, right.

It was a good thing she had no voice, or she would have screamed as she fell the last few feet to the ground. Somehow she managed to land on her feet, lose her balance, retain it, and walk forward a step only to slip and fall on her face.

_Oh, _someone_ upstairs is laughing their ass off over this,_ she thought sourly. _And when I die and meet them, they won't be laughing anymore._ She got up and started walking, watching her breath appear in small puffs of fog before her. _Who ever said Hell was fiery? I'd lay all my money that Hell is cold, and that this place is the Gate._

It just snowed harder.

---------

It was late, at least as far as Ghost was concerned when Sparks stumbled in. "Ghost, wake up!" he ordered, grabbing the Ghost by the shoulders and attempting to drag him out of bed. In reply, Ghost's arms automatically wound around the bed - all the beds were more like cots, for space reasons - and locked tight, making it impossible to dislodge him.

Ghost was unfairly strong for a podborn.

Fortunately, Sparks knew his weakness.

Even more fortunately, there was a girl on board that wasn't Niobe, so he could talk her into applying the weakness. "Oh Danaë," he called softly into the room she shared with Niobe. Luckily, Niobe, like most ship captains, tended to wake from sleep only to alarm claxons or an operator's curse.

Danaë was a much lighter sleeper. She came to the door in an overlarge shirt, rubbing sleepsand from her eyes. "Hmm? Sparks, whass wrong?" she asked in the groggy tone of the non-morning-people. It could've been worse, Sparks reasoned. When not pulled from bed by an emergency, Niobe devolved straight past Neanderthal to the point-and-grunt stage of human communication, at least until she had her coffee.

No one knew just how it was coffee beans managed to flourish underground, but most of the Fleet would be unoperational without it, so it all worked out in the end.

"We have a situation. I need help getting Ghost up; he's being decidedly stubborn."

When Sparks used the word 'situation' with that expression on his face, he was being serious. Danaë was alert immediately. "How can I help?"

He whispered in her ear and, serious situation or no, she giggled anyway. "Really?"

"I'll upload you another combat program if it doesn't work."

"Deal," she said swiftly, following him to the room Krsna and Ghost shared.

The Indian was awake now, watching with interest. "Y'goin' t' poke him with a stick?" he asked in a yawn.

"Even better." Sparks grinned maliciously. "Go for it, baby."

Danaë slid in close to Ghost, who still had his arms locked around the cot. She was amazed his arms could reach; Ghost was by no means a large man. However, it left a certain spot vulnerable... and armed with the information Sparks had given her, she was ready to make use of that one weakness of Zen Ghost's.

She leaned down and began swiftly walking her fingers up and down his sides, tickling him. Without any warning, his arms came up and around, locking behind him and pinning her to his back. "Sparks," he started, then his brain caught up with the rest of him as he realised that the person held tightly against his back was most definitely _not_ Sparks.

He let go, his ears bright red; Danaë herself was red-faced to the extreme. She matched her hair, at least. Ghost glanced at Danaë before turning to Sparks. "This had better be good, O Neurotic One."

"Indeed it is, O Logical One," Sparks shot back. "She's cleared out."

The three ex-coppertops stared at him. "What?"

"The girl, whatshername, Trinity's sister - she's out of the _château_. Went over the balcony. She's hoofing it like-" Sparks suddenly realised he was talking to an empty room. Ghost had grabbed Dana's arm and bolted out, Krsna hot on his heels.

Sparks followed, impressed despite himself. Yeah, the girl was most definitely Trinity's sister. Only Trinity would have tried something this drastic, brave, and stupid.

---------

Matthias Brown watched the girl flee, his face carefully blank. There was a fair chance that even the former Agent didn't know what game he was playing at. Just made it more of a challenge. Brown liked challenges. He always had, even if the challenge was nothing more than the brainteasers in the papers. He always had fun challenging his mental capacities... perhaps it was this, more than anything else, that had driven him ultimately to the Merovingian.

The challenge of being a bodyguard... as well as the challenge of finding or programming himself a shell so he could free the child in whom he now dwelled.


	17. Runaway

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Sixteen  
****Runaway**

* * *

Tiger was the first to realise something was wrong. "Hey, Seth?" he asked. "Mm?" asked his partner, who had his nose stuck in a book by someone called Ian Fleming.

"It's been an hour and a half."

"Mm."

"She's not back yet."

"Mm."

Tiger rolled his eyes and changed tactics.

"Rebels have invaded the castle and made off with the princess."

"Mm."

"The Twins are cross-dressing and making out."

"Mm."

"Rosebud's the sled."

"Mm."

"Persephone's pregnant."

"Mm."

"I'm pregnant."

"Mm."

"What the hell are you reading?"

"_Thunderball_."

"Good book?"

"Mm."

"Vlad and Cujo have been secret lovers for years."

"Mm."

"The ELVIS program has been rebooted and he's going on tour."

"Mm."

"Smith is back and he's here to assimilate us."

"Mm."

"There's an Agent behind you."

"Mm."

"He's got scissors and he's going to cut your hair."

"**_NEVER!!!!_**" Seth screeched, rising out of his chair as one hand protectively yanked his long ponytail over his shoulder.

Tiger rolled his eyes. "Now that I have your attention," he told his partner, "It's been over an hour and the girl isn't back yet."

Seth considered this for .007 seconds. Tiger rather thought he'd done that on purpose. "That's not good."

"No. It's not."

"If she's gone, we are royally fucked."

"Yes. We are."

"Where are the wolves?"

"Where else?"

Tiger and Seth found Cain and Abel and explained the problem; Cain went into the girl's room and searched. He was back quickly, the makeshift rope in his hand. "She's gone."

The four programs stood in silence for a long moment, considering their options. "We're screwed unless we get her back," Seth muttered.

"Yup," Tiger said.

"Outside," Cain ordered. "It's snowing; she's bound to have left some tracks behind _somewhere_."

Four very amused humans watched the programs troop outside to track down Avalon. Krsna had talked his way into upsetting their tracking and was busily hacking the Matrix... a part of it, anyway. "And... _voila_" He pushed a button.

"Here are the tracks!" Tiger cried gleefully, bounding to them. "She slipped here... got up... and went...."

The prints vanished.

Tiger stared at them, then looked to the sky. "If this is your idea of a joke, it isn't funny!" he howled.

"Rebels," Cain growled. "They're covering her tracks."

"I can track her," Abel said calmly.

Cain sniffed the air and nodded. "Vanilla. We don't get that scent much up here."

Abel's stomach rumbled audibly, and the others stared at him. He looked sheepish. "... I want some cookies...," he muttered.

"What is it with you and cookies lately?" Cain demanded of his cousin. Abel shrugged.

Seth rolled his eyes and handed Abel a box of sugar cookies. "Three left. You owe me. Now find her!"

Abel gulped down the cookies, then fur started crawling over his body.

Cain stopped him. "Nuh-uh, no way. Too close to harvest moon," he said seriously. "You'll lose control."

"I won't," Abel replied, "and it's the fastest way for us to catch up. Plus the cold won't bother us as much." Cain shot him a glare as black fur also spread over his body.

Within moments, Cain and Abel had turned into a pair of sleek wolves. They both sniffed the air, then the smaller wolf took off, Cain hot on his heels.

Seth and Tiger exchanged glances.

"We're screwed."

---------

It.

Was.

Bloody.

_Cold._

Morgain walked.

And walked.

And walked.

And, for a change of pace, walked some more.

She'd stopped to layer up, but she was still freezing. Maybe this hadn't been the brightest escape plan in the world... but in her opinion, freezing to death was better than being used as bait.

She kept walking.

---------

They were catching up, but Abel was rapidly losing control of his right mind. Cain kept a careful watch on his cousin, mentally cursing the girl's timing. It was dangerous for Abel to change this close to the time of his Enforced change. It was harder for Abel to defeat the lupine instincts, to ignore the call of the snow and the prey, to avoid the wolfish mind.

Cain saw his cousin veer off and yipped to remind him of his task - too late. Abel was gone, and the vampires were out. _Source damn it_, he snarled mentally, loping off after Abel. Screw Avalon. Abel was a danger to himself.

---------

Morgain didn't realise how close a call she had just had with the werewolves she didn't know were hot on her trail. She just kept walking, taking occasional swigs from one of her bottles of Mountain Dew, lamenting the fact that it wasn't the _real_ Mt. Dew Davis sang about. Alcohol would have given her the illusion that she wasn't cold. As it was, the caffeine kept her awake and gave her the energy she needed to keep going.

By now, she figured that at least one of her hands would be lost to frostbite, so she kept that one on the bottle and the other one in her pocket. She would have loved to have ordered gloves from the computer, but that would surely have tipped off even the idiots watching her.

She didn't know how long she'd been walking, but it had been well after midnight when she'd left the _château_, and it looked like false dawn was coming up on her, so it had to have been at least four hours. And it was _still_ bloody snowing.

Then she saw it.

A road.

Almost crying in relief, she made her way to it and started following it down. Eventually it would lead her to someplace with heat, right?

---------

The three rebels sighed in relief when Avalon found that road. "It leads to a rest stop and a diner," Krsna said. "She'll be safe there."

"No, she won't," Sparks disagreed. The others turned to look at the operator, who'd displaced Krsna and taken his seat back. "Am I the _only_ one on this ship who remembers the Freeway Massacre? Okay, granted, those two," he pointed to the teenagers, "were in Zion at the time, but God, Ghost, you saw the after-effects of that! These guys don't care about innocent bystanders!"

"Yes, but they were trying to kill the ones they were chasing. For some reason, these programs want Avalon alive," Ghost replied evenly.

"That won't stop them from gunning down the entire diner!" Sparks argued.

"Why don't we let Avalon handle it?" Danaë suggested. "She's doing a good job so far."

"Sounds good," Krsna added. Ghost and Sparks backed down, remembering that they had to set an example for their younger crewmates. Preferably a good one.


	18. West Coast Subway

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Seventeen  
****West Coast Subway**

* * *

It was a bit past dawn when Morgain stumbled into the diner. She all but collapsed in a seat and just laid her head on the table. After a moment, a waitress with a golden aura came to see her. "Hey, baby, you okay?" she asked. Morgain wearily looked at her, seeing the gold aura, and dimly tried to recall how to sign 'I've become a human popsicle'. No good.

At last, she grabbed a menu after two tries and pointed to the hot chocolate. Frozen or not, she hated coffee. The waitress ignored her, taking the girl's left hand between her own. "My God," she cried. "Gabe!"

A man stuck his head out of the food window. "What is it, Kitty?"

"This poor kid's like ice!"

Morgain heard no more as cold and exhaustion overtook her.

Gabriel and Copycat were both programs who had managed to avoid being beholden to the Merovingian. Gabe was nothing more than another wall-walker program, an Agent of the Fifth Matrix, while Kitty was one of the doppelganger programs that had been used to replace humans that went missing when Agents took over their shells.

However, they were also gaining a reputation for helping others escape the Merovingian, using their diner as a stop on what the programs called the West Coast Subway. Gabriel recognised the girl's face immediately, then realised who she was.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked, coming out of the kitchen to where the other program was holding Morgain against her.

"Feel her hands, Gabe. She'll lose the right one unless we do something!" Gabe nodded, touching the hand and very slowly erasing the damage done to it by the cold, restoring life to her fingers and then spreading warmth throughout the slim body.

"Do you know who she is, Kitty?" he asked his lover. Copycat shook her head, blonde curls bouncing. "She's Trinity's sister, the one they're holding at the _château_. Wingless told us she'd be by, remember?"

"That's right!" Kitty breathed, recalling the visit from the enigmatic Seraph two days earlier. Both of them liked the one-time angel program who had aided them when they'd been slated for deletion and kept them from falling into the Frenchman's clutches. She smiled fondly at the girl. "Brave kid, to have walked all the way here from the _château._ She's probably been walking all night!"

"She can stay here for now," Gabe decided. "Keep an eye out for the Frenchman's goons, though." Kitty nodded, then ran a gentle awakening program through the girl that also cleared out the virus that had settled into her system.

She woke nearly instantly, and signed an apology for falling asleep. "That's all right, baby," Kitty told her gently. "You wanted the hot chocolate?" The girl nodded, and Kitty brought Gabe the order. It was early for anyone to be in, so both of them were able to talk in private about how to get the girl out, as well as how much of the truth they could tell her.

Copycat took the chocolate to the girl and slid in the seat across from her. "You ran from the Frenchman, didn't you?" Shocked blue eyes sprang to her face, and the doppelganger program smiled. "Don't worry, baby, we don't work for him. In fact, we prefer to work against him."

'What do you mean?' the child asked.

"Gabe and I are going to help you get out of here," she answered. "We hate it when he gets innocents involved in his little 'games', plus we think it's funny when he loses those games."

She could see the startled laugh in the blue eyes, and grinned. "C'mon, we'll get you some breakfast."

---------

Link was very amused when he walked into the operating room to see four members of the crew all over the place, fast asleep. Sparks sat in the chair, head on the keyboard and using his arms for a pillow; Krsna was sprawled in one of the chairs they used to hack into the Matrix; Ghost was sitting down and leaning against the wall, Danaë beside him, her head on his shoulder and his head on hers.

With an evil smile, Link walked away, returning with one of the experimental Polaroid-type cameras being produced in Zion now. What was a "road trip" without blackmail photos, after all?

"You realise they'll kill you for this?" Niobe put in from where she was leaning against the doorway. "They can try," Link replied, walking away and heading to the galley.

Niobe motioned for the pictures, and Link obediently handed them over before going for coffee. "Awww, Ghost and Danaë look so cute... but how is this one blackmail?"

"I'll threaten to show 'em to AK," Link grinned.

"Makes sense," Niobe replied. "But if AK kills Ghost, you'll have to find me another first mate."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I wonder what got them all up, anyway," Niobe mused after a few moments of coffee-drinking-induced silence.

"Who knows," Link muttered. "We'd've been awake too if it were an emergency. At least we don't have to worry about Sentinels anymore."

No sooner had these words left his mouth then the proximity alert went off. They exchanged a look and bolted for the helm, Niobe snapping, "You just _had_ to say that, didn't you?" Link didn't answer as they slid into the cockpit and Niobe thumbed the holographics on.

"Squiddies. Six of 'em. And they ain't broadcasting a friendly signal," Link breathed before being shoved out of the way as Sparks, awakened like the others by the alarm, took his usual place as co-pilot. "Link, you get Kris and get on the guns; Danaë, you go find Ghost and stay with him unless he sends you away. And tell him to strap in if he hasn't already."

"What's with the calamari?" Sparks muttered as the ship roared to life and took off. "Aren't we at peace now?"

Ghost had indeed strapped in, but he had other orders for Danaë. "You were a signal hacker, right?" She nodded, scared. "Good. See if you can't hack their signal and figure out who they're working for."

Danaë wedged herself into a corner near the radio and began fiddling with it as Ghost opened fire.

In his gunner's pit, Krsna had concentrated his fire on the right squids, seeing that Link was focusing on the left pair and Ghost on the central ones. "Come get some," he whispered.

The _Logos_ barrel-rolled and then flipped up over on her nose, earning a yell of displeasure from Krsna and nearly throwing Danaë to the ceiling; Ghost, used to Niobe's idea of evasive manoeuvres, had reached out and pushed her down against the floor until the ship straightened out.

Danaë didn't notice, so intent was she on what she was doing. At last, the sentinels Ghost were tagging exploded, followed quickly by the ones flanking them, courtesy of Link and Krsna. The signal cut off, and Danaë looked stunned. Ghost unstrapped and crouched beside her. "You all right?"

She nodded. "Those sentinels... they were under the Frenchman's control."

"You're not serious!?" Sparks howled after Danaë repeated her findings to the others.

Danaë sighed. "I could be wrong... but hasn't he proved that he's got a grudge against everyone on this ship?" she asked.

"He has," Niobe answered, "but that doesn't matter. What matters is that we need to warn Zion and the other ships that he can get control of sentinels and kill us. We will definitely be needing to add EMPs to the ships we're rebuilding."

---------

A tour bus had pulled in on its way down the mountain. Gabriel had a conversation with the driver and the tour guide in which a nice sum of money exchanged hands, then Morgain was told that she would be leaving the diner on the bus, which would take her off the mountain and pass through a few cities on the way out. She could take her leave at any one of those cities.

"Wolf alert," Copycat said when negotiations were concluded, nodding to where two of the Merovingian's programs had arrived and were carefully looking around.

"Go for it, Kitty," Gabe replied. "I'll get the girl on the bus."

Copycat made sure no one was watching, then changed her code so that she looked exactly like Morgain, right down to the voice and the scent. It would be enough to fool the werewolves, she knew. But how long would they buy it?

"I smell her now," Cain said, as if Abel's stomach growling for the past two minutes hadn't been signal enough that Avalon was nearby. It had taken Cain half the night to find Abel and change him back, then another good hour for them to find the girl's scent once more. Abel more than made up for his slip by tracking her when Cain couldn't smell her. Either Abel's nose was more sensitive than Cain's, or he'd been faking it and had gotten lucky.

"There!" Abel pointed to where Avalon was walking to the diner. She heard his cry and turned, startled, then bolted. The werewolves ran after her, Cain pulling ahead of his smaller cousin and subsequently slipping on the icy ground. He managed to keep his balance and use his speed to slide across, but the transition from ice to gravel caught him and he fell. Abel, on the other hand, slid across and handled the change by making a small leap to non-icy ground, earning a mutter of "Show-off," from his cousin, who got to his feet and resumed pursuit.

"Now," Gabriel said softly, and he gently pushed Morgain into the line trooping steadily on board the bus. "Good luck, kid."

Cain and Abel had the girl cornered. Cain walked forward, smirking; Avalon stepped back, then pushed off the ground, flipping over their heads and landing on her hands, kicking Abel in the back and slamming him into Cain.

"Avalon can't do that," Abel muttered, turning to see her grinning at him. Then everything changed; her eyes turned black as her hair lengthened and lightened to blond and her scent altered from vanilla and mist to syrup and snow. "Doppelganger!" he snarled as she laughed.

"Have fun catching her now, boys," she said teasingly.

"Kill her!" Cain snarled as he and Abel drew their guns and fired simultaneously. She, however, was already gone, over their heads and on the roof.

Then Abel saw the bus pulling out and Avalon - the real one - watching him from the back window as it left. "We are seriously fucked," Abel said, pointing the problem out to Cain.

"Very much fucked," Cain agreed "Damn doppelgangers."


	19. Homecoming

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Eighteen  
****Homecoming**

* * *

Horizon woke in the hospital. Her side didn't hurt, so she figured that she was doped up so she wouldn't feel the pain. Her neck hurt, though. Damn pervert. She struggled to sit up, a difficult task - _Yup, they drugged me_ - until a strong hand caught her behind the shoulder and helped her up.

"How are you feeling?"

She knew that voice. She smiled up at her cute neighbour. "Like they've got me on ten different types of painkillers. Simultaneously. How are you?"

Seraph smiled back. "I am relieved that Vlad did not kill you."

"His name's Vlad? Figures. Pervert _bit_ me. Hey, could you look into getting me a rabies shot? That sucker _hurt_."

"When you are ready to leave, there is someone who is waiting to see you. She was very worried when she heard you had been shot. I believe her exact words were, 'I knew something bad would happen to that idiot if I left her alone, I knew it!'"

Horizon's eyes widened. "Avvy's back!? Get me out of here!"

Seraph noted that either she was easily distracted, or she prioritised in an interesting manner. She hadn't even asked how he'd known her assailant's name. But then, that was a good thing. He didn't want her to know that he'd once been connected to the people who kidnapped her friend.

Liberal application of his 'Jedi Mind Trick' got her out of the hospital as quickly as it had gotten her in, though Seraph flat-out refused to let her walk and she flat-out refused to ride in a wheelchair. They compromised: Seraph carried her out and she blushed like mad.

"So where is she?" Horizon asked him eagerly.

"With Sati and the Oracle," he replied. "And your friend Gunner."

Horizon grinned. "He must be over the moon now that she's back. He's been blaming her kidnapping on himself."

Seraph knew it well. It did not help matters any that the mafia Gunner enforced for was starting to nibble very delicately on the edges of the Merovingian's territory. Perhaps it was a good thing that those who were the farthest along tended to be unplugged before the Frenchman got _really_ annoyed.

It had been difficult, prising Avalon away from her suddenly overprotective parents for Horizon's homecoming. Liberal application of the Jedi Mind Trick, promising that she wouldn't be out of sight, and promising that he or Gunner would be with her at all times had finally gotten the desired result, and Avalon had been so grateful to him for getting her away she hadn't asked how he'd known her alias.

Seraph pulled into their apartment complex and helped Horizon upstairs - the elevator was _still_ out; he was going to have to do something about that. Sati greeted them at the door with her usual cry of, "Miss Seferino!" and her usual tackle-hug; however, due to the TA's injuries, she tackled her around the hips instead of the waist.

"'Rizon!" Gunner cried, reaching over Sati and pulling the Hispanic woman off the ground as he gave her a back-breaking bear hug. "Welcome back," he grinned before a blur of black and white zoomed from another room and slammed into Gunner's side, trying to hug Horizon as well.

"Avvy!" Horizon cried as she wriggled from Gunner's hold to hug her best friend. "You escaped! You got out!" Avvy grinned and signed too rapidly for Seraph to read. Horizon and Gunner could, and both of them laughed.

"Over the balcony! Only you, child!" Gunner chuckled.

News was exchanged, and Avalon's signing slowed as she detailed her imprisonment. Seraph's eyes narrowed as she mentioned the nightmare - a leftover memory of the Smith Assimilation? - and then the Agent attack. Rogue Agents were certainly becoming a nuisance these days.

So, Seth was still working for the Merovingian? Of course he was, Tiger was still there. And Cain and Abel were up to their usual tricks, though Copycat had mentioned Abel's strange new craving for cookies when he'd come to warn them that the Avalon would pass through.

However, the Matthias she'd mentioned, who had helped her - who was he? He had to be a newcomer, especially if he wasn't partnered up like the rest of the programs. Perhaps a former Agent as well? He would have to fight him to find out.

Much more interesting were the things Avalon _wasn't_ mentioning that the Oracle had, including the starts of an emotional attachment. That was bad; nothing good ever came from program/human relationships. They were to be avoided at all costs. Shyama had not followed that, and she had....

_Stop thinking about her_, he thought fiercely. _She left a long time ago to have her little 'family'._ He watched the three friends talking, not realising that his eyes tended to linger on Horizon.

The Oracle noticed, and she hid a smile. This new game would be most interesting.

---------

Seth, Tiger, Cain, and Abel were in disgrace. The Merovingian ordered a retaliatory strike on the program-owned diner, but when Cujo and some of his werewolves arrived, Gabriel and Copycat had skipped out on their own escape route.

The four programs laid low until the Merovingian's black mood abated, and even then they stayed out of his way - out of everyone's way, really, it was embarrassing being outwitted by a teenaged girl.

Cain and Abel had sworn revenge on the _Logos'_ newest addition, Krsna Aatmik. Oh, they knew what he was, all right, which just made his crime all the worse. They'd managed to track the girl to the bus' next stop, but the Ghost and the kid had been waiting for them. Ghost had provided a distraction, then before either knew what was happening, Krsna had detonated a very specialised bomb.

A scent bomb.

Every other scent was immediately wiped out as both of their noses were flooded with peppermint. _Strong_ peppermint. Both nearly fainted from the sensory overload; nearly a week later, both were _still_ craving candy canes. Luckily, it was close to Christmas, so there were most definitely candy canes to be had.

It was going to take some time to get back in the Merovingian's good graces. Fortunately, _time_ was in good supply at the _château_. Hopefully, nothing else would screw up.

Damn humans.


	20. The Year When Nothing Big Happens

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Nineteen  
****The Year When Nothing Big Happens**

* * *

**... yeah, right....**

* * *

'You _still_ have boxes lying around?' Morgain signed to Horizon in exasperation. Horizon laughed nervously, copying a classic anime pose by placing her right hand behind her head with her elbow sticking up. Morgain rolled her eyes and gave the Hispanic girl a gentle thwack upside the head. 'Jeez, Horizon. Your computer is so organised it puts the writers of those self-help books to shame, but when it comes to something _non_-virtual....'

She poked the air four times to convey the 'dot effect'. Horizon laughed. "What can I say?"

Morgain shook her head sadly. 'You really need someone to organise this place for you,' she said.

"Well, I'd ask you to do it, but with your overprotective _madre_ and your job hunt, you're too busy."

'I've got to get out of there!' Morgain signed. 'I can't do _anything_ without her hovering over me! That stupid Frenchman _destroyed _my social life!'

"So that's why you haven't been over at the _Freedman's_ lately. I was wondering," Horizon mused. Then she grinned. "Y'know, Avvy, you could always move in with me? I've got that extra bedroom, you can pick up half the rent and half the bill; we can get to the college easily...."

Within a month, Morgain had found a job and moved in with her best friend. A week after she'd moved in, she was settled in, unpacked, and starting to unpack Horizon's boxes. That was accomplished in a week, then she started on the bills.

'Sabé?'

"Yeah?"

'You have a cell phone, right?'

"Yeah."

'So why do we need a phone line? We have cable internet, so we're just wasting cash.'

Horizon cancelled the phone service.

---------

Gunner only fell deeper into the entangling web of the organisation. He had a harried look these day as more and more people died or vanished, some of them people he had known well and respected, if not considered friends. He was trying to get out, but they were holding onto him tighter, even threatening Avalon and Horizon.

Davis had been missing for three years now, and that bothered Gunner. He would have heard if the younger man were dead.

---------

Seraph ran into Horizon several times over the course of the year: Picking Sati up from school, getting groceries, at the Laundromat (it seemed as thought Seraph had to do a lot of the chores), and even in a book store, where they discovered they had nearly the same taste for books, though Horizon had a passion for _manga_ Seraph did not share.

Seraph offered to teach both girls another style of martial arts, _Tai Chi_. Morgain declined - she was taking a _Jujutsu_ class - but she talked Horizon into studying with Seraph. Neither noticed the mischievous glint in her blue eyes.

---------

A young man, battered and bruised, was dragged before the Merovingian. "Ah, D'Artagnan," the Frenchman mused, "It has been some time."

"Was this really necessary?" he asked, pulling from his 'captor's' grips and brushing some of his hair from his eyes.

"We 'ad to make it look authentic, did we not?"

"You could've just called. I did send you my number."

"Vlad... lost it, I'm afraid."

D'Artagnan rolled his eyes. "He just can't accept the fact that I was unplugged and survived."

"It took you some time to contact us, _mon__ petit __espion_."

"I haven't been able to get out of Zion until now. The new captain of the _Gnosis_ is slightly paranoid due to the Cypher and Bane incidents, so all watches are double-watches."

"I see. Zen it is good zat we 'captured' you, _non_?"

"I guess. But did you have to send the Gemini to do it? Cain and Abel woulda been just as efficient."

"Stop complaining. At least zey had orders to keep you alive and conscious."

"All right."

The Merovingian gave his spy his orders, then let him go.

---------

Cain was starting to worry about Abel. His young cousin wasn't getting enough sleep, and he seemed oddly depressed. At least his little cookie obsession had stopped. Had Cain been the type to notice details, he would have realised that the depression coincided with Avalon's clean escape.

Tiger and the only loner of the Merovingian's bodyguards, a prankster extraordinaire commonly called Red - mainly because no one could pronounce his other name, Poitin - noticed, however. They made it their business to notice the minor details for future pranks.

However, both decided that teasing him about Avalon wouldn't be a very good idea, mainly because in his last encounter with Cujo, when Cujo had implied that Abel had let the girl escape because she traded her body for it, Abel had calmly set Cujo straight with his fists, pounding the much bigger werewolf with an alarmingly serene expression on his face.

Messing with Abel was not the brightest of ideas at the moment.

---------

Ghost was falling further into depression over Trinity. Danaë did her level best to help him out, but it was doing no good and dragged her down as well. Krsna was spending much of his time in the Construct, making _something_ with the highly explosive program Sati had given him. Link didn't go out with the _Logos_ often, opting to spend more of his time with his wife now that Zee was pregnant with their first child. Niobe tended to divide her time between brooding, her racing program, getting exasperated with her soap-opera of a ship, and thinking about Morpheus.

Sparks appeared to be the only one unaffected.

"Hey, did you hear the latest from Zion?" he asked, ignoring the silence of the galley. Niobe shook her head as Krsna went for seconds on coffee. "Apparently, programs can breed with humans and come up with half-human/half-programs. And they can be unplugged, though dangerously. In fact, according to the 'bots down at 01, one's already running around in the real world."

There was a crash as Krsna's coffee mug bounced on the floor. Danaë noticed that the young man's hands were shaking. Ghost was lost in his own little world, and Niobe was staring at Sparks. "Sparky, if you're lying I _swear_ I'll string you up myself!"

He made an 'x' over his heart. "Would I lie? I'm dead serious, Niobe. There's some part-program in Zion." Danaë picked up Krsna's mug and looked up at him. His naturally dark face had paled to an unhealthy ashen pallor.

"You okay?" she asked. She had to ask again before he looked down at her.

"What? Oh, oh no, I'm fine, really."

Danaë arched an eyebrow. He gave her a weak grin and left the galley. Danaë sighed and went to see if she could get Ghost to respond.

---------

And so the year passed.


	21. Desire

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twenty  
****Desire**

* * *

Abel awoke to find Avalon standing over him. He blinked several times. "Avvy?" he asked softly, the nickname rolling easily off his tongue. She leaned forward and gently pressed her fingers against his lips to silence him, her vanilla-mist scent filling his nose. Abel sat up, looking warily towards the couch where Cain normally slept.

He was out like a light, a pillow over his face.

Abel turned back to Avalon curiously, wondering how and why she had come back to the _château_. About two years had passed since he had last seen her, and she looked stunningly beautiful. Her skin was a healthy colour, neither bleached by a computer screen nor damagingly darkened by the sun; her eyes, though the colour of ice, held an unmistakeable warmth in them; her silver-black hair had grown longer though she still wore it in the style Persephone had shown her awhile ago.

Avalon smiled at him, sitting beside him on the couch, her small hand reaching up to caress his cheek. "Avalon-" he began, but she again pressed her cool fingers against his lips. Those blue eyes stared into his own lupine eyes for a long, heart-stopping moment, then Abel reached up, taking her hand in his and pulling it gently away from his mouth as his other arm slowly reached out and wrapped around her waist, drawing her slender body closer to his.

He let go of her hand and gently cupped her cheek, slowly bringing her face closer to his. Their lips met, and all reason was blown out of Abel's mind.

He.

Wanted.

Her.

He deepened their kiss softly, and her arms wrapped around him, one of her hands sliding up his neck and entangling itself in his hair. _Yes, yes, yes!_ he thought dazedly, abruptly scooping her up into his arms. Knowing Cain, he would pick an utterly inappropriate moment to wake up. Abel somehow managed to locate the key to the room he shared with Cain but never used, though it did take him a moment to remember how to operate a door.

He got it after a moment and carried Avalon in, shutting the door behind him with his foot. The room was mercifully empty.

Abel resumed their passionate kiss as he led her to one of the beds - they'd never figured out which one belonged to who; they'd instead claimed the couches - and gently laid her down on it.

He slowly began to disrobe her --

Abel woke with a start, falling off his couch and smacking his head on the table. It took his addled mind a moment to realise that he had been dreaming. "_Bloody...!_" he let his head slump forward and accidentally banged it against the side of the table. "_HELL!!_"

He clamped his hand to his aching head, stumbling to his feet. Cookies. He wanted cookies. Abel wandered within the general direction of the door and tripped over Cain's couch, landing on his cousin. Cain could sleep through a lot of things, but another man falling on his stomach was not one of them.

He pushed Abel off, and Abel's head slammed into the table a third time. "_DAMN IT!_"

Cain blinked at his cousin. "Abel?" he yawned. "Why're you on th' floor?"

Abel growled several unrepeatable things in their native German under his breath before rising unsteadily to his feet. "I'm going to get cookies and vodka. Straight up. Want some?"

Cain checked his watch; it was four in the morning. "No...," he said slowly in his 'Talking-To-Crazy-People' voice, "that's all right...." Abel shrugged and walked towards the door. Cain observed worriedly that he was not walking straight.

Abel went to open the door and managed to smack himself in the face with it. "Shit!" the younger wolf yelped, clutching his forehead.

He glared at the door, turned to Cain with a classic 'Not-A-WORD-About-This-Gets-Out' look, turned back to walk out, and ran smack into the frame. Cain winced and was at his cousin's side before he could injure himself anymore. "Abel, why don't you sit down and let me get your vodka. You wanted it straight up?"

"The whole fucking bottle."

"Yes, Abel."

"And don't forget the cookies!"

Cain shook his head as he headed off. He was a bit worried about leaving Abel there by himself, but he figured that even _he_ couldn't hurt himself if he sat still and - didn't - move!

Cain wasn't too sure of that point, however, so he decided to hurry. Finding the cookies wasn't a problem - Esau had a sweet tooth that outdid the Merovingian's taste for wine - but finding the vodka _was_. Esau's sweet tooth may have outdone the Frenchman's thing for wine, but even his taste for sweets was outdone by Red's taste for alcohol in general.

Cain rolled his eyes. He still didn't consider the Merovingian's decision to give the Irishman a place as one of his guards to be a good one -- as far as he was concerned, the former William Brennan could switch his loyalty elsewhere as easily as he had switched to the Merovingian. One could never be sure of the redhead who constantly changed his shell's appearance.

At least he'd dropped the stupid facial tattoos and the odd haircut in favour of a shell that looked much more like he had when they'd first encountered him - Very tall, muscular, with a head full of extremely red hair and a permanent grin.

No matter what the shell, though, Red tended to hide the liquor.

At last Cain found the bottle of vodka and started to pull it out of the floor cabinet Red had hidden it in, when the scent of moonlight flooded his nose as a female voice said, "Didn't know you drank, lover."

Cain jumped, banging his head against the top of cabinet. "Ow! Luna!" he yelped. The female program giggled from where she was sitting on the counter, her dark blue hair spilling down her back and framing her pale face. Luna was a ghost program not unlike the Twins, though she had served her purpose before the system remembered that ghosts were not a good thing. They had not expected severe resistance from the lunar program's Exiled lover.

Cain smiled at her. "The vodka's not for me, it's for Abel."

Luna sighed. "Is he still pining for the girl?"

Cain dropped the vodka. "_What!?_" Luna smiled, mischief in her grey eyes, but she said no more. And she had ways of distracting him so he wouldn't ask.

---------

After about an hour, Abel realised that Luna had shown up and therefore Cain would not be back for some time. He managed to make it to the kitchen without injuring himself. _At least they had the courtesy to go somewhere where no one would walk in on them_, he thought wryly. He found the cookies and the vodka and proceeded to try and get good and drunk. He was half-way there when it occurred to him that he could go see the Oracle and get her interpretation on his odd behaviour.

The Merovingian didn't like it when his programs went to see her, but it wasn't exactly _verboten_ just frowned upon. Abel snatched a few cookies, grabbed his keys, and made a visit to the city.

All of them knew where the Oracle lived, of course. They just weren't stupid enough to try and harm her with the traitor watching over her, especially after that solid ass-kicking Neo had given the Merovingian's best bodyguards. He wouldn't know, of course. He hadn't been there due to a silver bullet between the eyes.

A growl emerged from his throat at that bitter memory, but he choked it down. Better _not_ to scare the hell out of the coppertops... they were avoiding him enough as it was. Abel had gone for his less formal wear for this visit - black slacks, a black shirt with the top three buttons undone, and a long black trench coat.

They were looking at him as if they expected him to pull an XM8 Carbine out from under his coat and open fire… Abel looked down to where he had the submachine gun strapped to his side. No, it wasn't visible.

Stupid humans.

Abel couldn't take the looks or the _smell_ of the tightly packed subway anymore, so he got off at the next stop. He would walk to the Oracle's. He was afforded a wide berth as he made his way off the train and into the station.

The young-looking werewolf stepped into the morning sunlight, wincing as his eyes, accustomed to dim lighting, burned as the brightness seared them. Instinctively he raised an arm to shield them, and found himself staring right into the face of the traitor.

"Wingless!" he breathed.

Suddenly this didn't seem like that bright of an idea.

To his utter surprise, Seraph didn't attack. He didn't look too thrilled to see Abel either, but he said, "She is expecting you."

Duh.

She _was_ the Oracle.

Feeling a bit foolish that he'd thought he could just drop in for a surprise visit, Abel meekly followed Seraph. He'd not been attacked, which was a good side. However, he kept his hands free in case he needed to grab the carbine at his side.

Seraph led Abel to a rundown part of town and up some stairs - Abel could have sworn he heard Seraph muttering in Chinese, "Damn elevator is _still_ broken...." He almost laughed at that, but refrained. Caution was best around the fallen angel.

Abel stopped dead as a familiar scent came to him, one he'd missed due to all the other scents floating about the building. All rational thought was blown out of his mind as he turned to stare at the door from which the scent was strongest.

_She_ was here.

---------

_**Lehorin:** The plural of matrix is 'matrices'. And yes, I am including the failed matrices. They _are_ canon._


	22. Aisling

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twenty-One  
****Aisling**

* * *

The wolf wasn't moving, just staring at the door. Seraph watched him for a moment, then shook his head. He had never thought he'd see Abel in this sort of a state. There was a shocked, almost forlorn expression on the younger program's face; he had completely forgotten that one of the most feared and hated Exiles in existence was standing not three feet away from him.

The Oracle's door opened and Sati looked out. "The Oracle says that Avalon will not be home until well past midnight, so you might as well stop staring at a door that will not move and come inside," the young program stated. Abel jumped in surprise and Seraph smiled. Sati was the equivalent of a young teenager by now, thirteen and in the seventh grade.

Abel turned to the girl and sniffed the air, then looked surprised. "You're that Exile from-"

"The park, yes," Sati answered, giving him a glare. "When you tried to kidnap me."

Abel tried to look innocent and failed quite miserably, so he settled for giving her his best Intimidating Look™. Instead of being properly intimidated, Sati started to giggle. "Kids these days," he muttered. "So desensitised by movies and television."

Seraph shook his head. "Come." The werewolf sighed and followed the other two programs, wondering idly how long he'd have camera duty for this little stunt. Camera duty just wasn't fun without Avalon dancing. Ah well, he'd been meaning to reread the _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy, and camera duty was the perfect opportunity for it.

Sati flounced off to another room, pausing just long enough to pick up a book titled _The Giver_. There were three other children in the apartment, all of them ignoring him. A little African girl in the corner was playing with her blocks by levitating them; an Icelandic boy of about six was sitting on the wall, reading a book in some Oriental script (actually, it was written in runes, but Abel had never been good with symbols).

There was a tug on the hem of his trench coat, and he looked down into the copper eyes of a child who reminded him eerily of the twins. 'You are not like us,' she signed to him. 'You do not belong to that other world.'

Abel bent his knees until he was crouched at the child's level. "How do you know that?" There was no response, and Abel utilised his ability to see code and realised that the girl was deaf. He repeated his question in sign language, and her face lit up with a bright smile.

'Because your glow is silver, not blue or green or gold.'

'What's the difference?' he asked her, curious.

'Gold are the not-humans that come from the other world. Green is the colour of the humans who are sleeping here, and blue is the colour of the humans who come here to wake up the ones who are sleeping.'

Abel blinked. She could tell the difference between humans and programs? And she could tell the rebels and coppertops apart, as well as the Exiles from the System-sanctioned ones? How interesting.

"Don't even think about it," Seraph said from behind him, causing Abel to jump and lose his balance, toppling onto his back.

He glared up at the wingless angel. "I wasn't," he muttered as he rose to his feet.

A small hand slid itself into his, and he looked down in shock to see the girl holding onto his hand and smiling. Seraph looked as surprised as he. "Strange... Aisling does not like many people."

Abel gave the angel a stunned look. "She... likes me? She's not afraid?"

"Children see what adults can't," came the stately voice of the Oracle. Abel turned to one of the oldest programs in existence, green-grey eyes taking in her new shell. The yin-yang earrings were a nice touch, he thought, they symbolised her relationship with the Architect quite nicely. "Apparently, she can see something in you that she likes."

"What?" Abel asked, curious. He hadn't thought a human would find any of him likeable.

The Oracle smiled. "Perhaps the affection you hold in your heart for another."

It took Abel a moment to realise what she was getting at. When he did, a slight blush came to his cheeks and he stammered, "I d-don't know what y-you're talking about."

"Of course you don't," the Oracle said soothingly. "Why don't you come on back to the kitchen with me and we can talk about it?" 'Aisling,' she signed to the girl, 'go with Seraph and see if you can't find that book you were reading.' Aisling nodded, releasing Abel's hand and taking Seraph's instead.

Abel followed the Oracle to the kitchen, where a scent very similar to Avalon's was flooding the room. How she had kept that scent confined was a mystery to the young wolf. "Cookies," the Oracle answered Abel's unasked question. "Chocolate chip. I considered making sugar cookies, but that would have been unfair to you."

"Why?" Abel asked.

"Because their scent is enough like Avalon's that you would have believed she was here."

Abel's jaw fell open. "Y-you mean that my craving for sugar cookies was actually-"

"Yes," the Oracle replied. After two years, he finally got it. "You didn't actually want cookies, you wanted her."

Abel sank into a chair, stunned as he finally realised what was wrong with him. "I... I'm in love with her?"

"That was quicker than your cousin. No, you're in lust. However, that could easily develop into love."

Abel didn't hear the statement about Cain. He was busy reflecting on this new revelation. He was fond of the girl, certainly. She was a wonderful dancer and an intelligent girl; she looked so much like Trinity but her personality and scent were so different from the rebel's that Abel wondered how _anyone_ could possibly mix the two up.

Obviously, Abel didn't put much stock in what he could see and much more in what he could smell. "Where is she?" Abel asked.

"She's out with her friend Horizon. They are both of them preparing for a Halloween party at a club they both attend."

The Oracle didn't mention the fact that both girls were in trouble, mainly because Abel would go rushing off and all sorts of unneeded chaos would ensue. Just because she was chaos personified didn't mean that she caused it unnecessarily.

Abel considered her words for a moment. "What's this club called?"

"_Freedman_."

Abel had heard of that club. "Don't David and Benjamin run that place?"

"Yes, but they're known as Alex and Joe now. Don't forget that the Merovingian agreed to let them live."

Abel sighed. "How could I forget? Cujo and Vlad are _still_ complaining about that."

The Oracle smiled, casually mentioned that she needed to go out... and before he knew it, Abel had been shanghaied into babysitting the kids.


	23. Makeover

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twenty-Two  
****Makeover**

* * *

Morgain was the one who noticed the random, generic car following Horizon's on their way to the mall to buy their costumes for the club party. Her eyes narrowed behind their sunglasses when she saw it match every move they made.

She wasn't afraid that it was the guys who worked for that annoying French guy: she figured that she wouldn't have noticed the subtle ones and that the unsubtle ones would have blown the freeway apart. Besides, it had been two years since her escape, and he hadn't coma after her once since then.

She didn't warn her friend, however, until they had parked near the entrance. 'We're being followed.'

Horizon turned Morgain around, pretending to use her mirrored sunglasses to check her make-up. "Two men. Kinda tall, wearing suits and dark sunglasses. They look like Feds, but even Feds aren't _that_ obvious... I think, anyway."

Morgain sighed and signed, 'Well, let's shop and see if one of us can't sneak a closer look.' Within an hour, they had ascertained that the news wasn't good. They worked for the same group as Gunner did, according to Horizon, the group that Gunner had been trying to back out of. If they were coming after the two girls, that meant his repeated attempts to pull out were worrying them.

Then Morgain saw a pair of familiar faces. 'Double trouble. Horizon, I think it's time for a makeover.'

Horizon followed Morgain's look. "Twins? They look like pimps."

'Nope. I think they're enforcers for that French guy who kidnapped me. I want to look like someone else. Now.'

Horizon nodded.

One and Two certainly had not expected to run into the sister of the One's woman at the mall. They themselves were there for a 'business meeting'. Unfortunately, their contact had received word that his old organisation was onto him, so he had had to cancel.

This aggravated them, as they despised malls.

They noticed the men following the two girls first, actually.

"Two. Look over there. Some humans are attempting to stalk someone."

Two followed his brother's gaze. "Interesting. We think Cujo could probably do a better job." Then his eyes caught a familiar face. "Well, well... it would appear that they are stalking little Avalon and a friend."

One raised an eyebrow as he saw the girls. "This will not do... the deal is only good as long as she and her friend are unharmed."

Two agreed. "We may have to do something about this."

"Yes, we may. We may even wind up accidentally injuring one of these fools."

Their faces twisted into identical smug smirks.

"Look, One. We think that Avalon has seen us," Two said to his brother.

One turned his head slightly as the Hispanic girl turned a bit, stretching. "Hmm... that's the girl who prevented Vlad from kidnapping the little Exile. We are intrigued."

"Yes, we are...."

The Twins watched the two girls rise and casually stroll into a store. The men immediately followed them, earning a sigh from Two. "Subtle, they are not."

"Indeed. Incidentally, isn't that store connected to the one next to it via a storage room?"

"We believe it is."

"Do we think those girl know that?"

"Yes, we do."

"Do we think their pursuers know that?"

"No," Two grinned, "we do not."

Sure enough, the two girls walked out of the connecting store and casually sauntered in the general direction of the nearest mass-produced "Goth" store. The Twins decided to rise and meander towards the store where the girl's stalkers were. They felt like causing mayhem.

Horizon pulled Avalon into the store's dressing room. 'They following?' Avvy signed, and Horizon peeked through the curtain.

"No... those albino guys stopped 'em... shit, that had to hurt!" Horizon winced as a line of red was drawn up one guy's chest.

'That gives us time to work. Come on - we have to change our appearances.'

"How?"

Avalon looked speculatively at Horizon's hair.

"Oh, _hell_ no!"

---------

One and Two watched a pair of vinyl-clad young women walk casually out of the store connected to the "Gothic" store. Both wore sunglasses and one looked exactly like Trinity save one detail: Part of her hair had been sprayed with hot pink hair spray. The other girl was shorter than Trinity's doppelganger, black hair braided to her knees - well, black where it hadn't been sprayed neon blue.

"Nice makeover," Two commented. "We wonder if she realises that she looks even more like the One's woman now."

One noticed the unhappy look on her face. "We rather think she does," he replied.

Two looked a bit closer, then nodded. "Yes. Human females are amazing creatures."

One shot his brother an odd look. "Say again?"

"When they prepare for a date, it can take up to four hours to do so. But if there is an emergency, they can completely alter their appearance in a half-hour or less."

One took a moment to ponder this mystery. "Amazing."

"Yes."

"We're bored."

"Yes, we are."

"He's not going to show up."

"We agree. Shall we return to the _château?_"

One nodded.

---------

Cain woke next to his pale-skinned lover, thinking about Abel's odd behaviour. He ran his hand through the sleeping Luna's hair, freezing as he finally realised the cause of his cousin's problems.

Abel had fallen for the human.

An odd emotion surged through Cain then. How could a mere human have captured Abel's heart? Abel deserved someone better than a human who would forever live trapped in the shadow of the One's woman. He would have to make Abel see sense... or better yet, get the girl out of the picture entirely....

Cain then looked at Luna, a former moon program, and an idea began to form in his mind.

---------

The _Logos _at last berthed in Zion, and the weary crew disembarked. There had been too many close calls with those Sentinels controlled by the Merovingian. Sparks made his way to his room, muttering about decent sleep, while Niobe sought out Morpheus. Ghost made his ritualistic pilgrimage to the graves of Neo and Trinity - mostly Trinity - and Krsna went off for business unknown, leaving Danaë to herself.

"Danaë!"

Or not.

She turned with a half-smile to the young man charging from the APU barracks. "Hey, Kid," she greeted the now-twenty-year-old man, "how's it going?"

"Pretty good," he grinned enthusiastically. "The APU corps are up to full ranks now."

"Great!" she exclaimed, smiling at his excitement at this feat.

"How are things on the _Logos_?" Kid asked her.

Danaë sighed. "Not too good... everyone's getting exhausted what with all the Squiddies, and Ghost is just getting worse."

Kid slung a companionable arm around her shoulders. "Why don't you drag him to the Gathering tonight? He can at least drink and forget, since the lot of you are on enforced shore leave for a week."

Danaë made a face. "A week? I bet Niobe loves that."

"I'm sure we'll hear her yelling any minute now."

"Any more news on that human/program?" Danaë asked next.

Kid shook his head. "For awhile, they thought it was me - I'm the only known case of self-substantiation, after all." He grinned. "Deadbolt had a fit when he found out that some wanted me banned from the APU corps until I was cleared. As I recall, his exact words were along the lines of 'This kid helped save our asses four years ago. A lot has changed since then, however, he is not another Bane, he is not another Cypher. He stays!'"

Avalon's jaw dropped. "_Deadbolt_ said that?"

Kid nodded. "I guess he figures I'm one of the best the APU corps has, and since that French guy is taking control of the Sentinels, it's only a matter of time before he tries to hit Zion when the ships are out."

Danaë sighed. "That Merowhatsisface sure can hold a grudge."

Kid nodded. "I'm sure you would know more than any other ship." He then changed the subject before it could get back to the _Logos'_ problems. "So, you going to the Gathering?"

Danaë nodded. "Isn't everyone?"


	24. Party

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twenty-Three  
****Party**

* * *

Alex greeted Horizon and Avalon with, "It's Karaoke Night."

Horizon groaned. "Alex, if you make me sing the Macarena _one_ more time...." Alex did a double-take as Avalon came into the light. Source, but she looked like her sister...

No, wait.

Hot pink coloured her bangs and a section of her hair, as well as accented the vinyl catsuit in the form of a leg belt, a glove, a wrist band, and an armband. Nice move. Horizon had done the same thing, only in neon blue and every accessory on the opposite limb from Avalon's. It made for an interesting mirror image, even with Horizon's shorter height and longer hair. For some reason, it reminded him of the Twins. Alex gave them an appreciative wolf whistle. "Drinks on the house for both pictures of loveliness before me," he grinned.

Avalon stuck her tongue out at him, signing, 'Underage, moron.'

"Eh, it's Halloween, in't? Live a little, Avvy. You hang out with a mafia enforcer and a hacker, for Pete's sake. Why do you care if you have a little alcohol? Hey, Joe," he added as his menacingly large cousin Suddenly Loomed over his shoulder.

This was common, as Joe was a Loomer. It often happened Suddenly. **(1)**

"Machine's set up. Horizon, the first song's yours," he told her. The Hispanic woman stuck her nose up in the air and flounced off, Avalon following with an unholy grin on her face that meant trouble of the sort that even the Twins wouldn't look for. Once they were out of earshot, Joe leaned over to tell Alex, "I heard from the fortuneteller that Wingless and the Brown Wolf are coming tonight."

Alex shot Joe a stricken look, and the bouncer ginned. "Apparently, Wolf came out of desire to see one of them," he jerked his thumb at the departing pair, "and she sent Wingless to, quote, 'get him a social life,' unquote."

Alex couldn't help but laugh at that. He couldn't picture the Chinese program with a social life.

In the distance, he heard the opening notes of a song, and a Sudden Feeling of Doom came over him. "Shit," he groaned as Horizon picked up the mic. "They planned this."

"Yup," Joe answered as Horizon began the song Alex hated above all.

"_At first I was afraid, I was petrified  
_"_Kept thinking I can't never live without you by my side_..."

Alex groaned and slunk back to his bar, where he downed a tequila and tried to ignore the song and Avalon's dance.

"_Oh now go, walk out the door  
__"Turn around now, cause you're not welcome anymore  
__"Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye  
__"Did you think I'd crumble? Did you think I'd lay down and die?  
__"Oh no, not I, I will survive..._!"

"Make it go awaaaaaaay," Alex wailed from his barricade.

"Some things never change, eh, Benny?" came a familiarly arrogant tone.

"It's 'Alex' now, Wolfy. Don't forget it."

He looked up to see Abel grinning at him. Abel grinning and showing teeth was never a good thing. "Take it somewhere else, wolf-boy," Alex growled. "This is our place, our haven."

"Relax, wall-crawler," Abel shot back. "I'm not here to cause trouble."

"That's a first."

Abel opened his mouth to retort, but he hung off as he noticed Avalon doing the Hustle. Alex grinned. So she _was_ the girl that had Abel acting odd. It did make a kind of sense, though he couldn't fathom where the attraction had started.

The question was: Did she like him back? The programs working under the Merovingian didn't take rejection very well. As Avalon and Horizon stepped off the stage, Abel moved away to intercept her.

---------

At the Gathering, Krsna had volunteered to sing the memorial. He had chosen to sing a tune from a musical that was surprisingly appropriate for the survivors of that last battle.

_"There's a grief that can't be spoken  
"There's a pain goes on and on  
"Empty chairs at empty tables  
"Now my friends are dead and gone  
"Here they talked of revolution  
"Here it was they lit the flame  
"Here they sang about tomorrow  
"And tomorrow never came.  
"From the table in the corner  
"They could see a world reborn...."_

Zee and some other women were openly crying, and even Locke had to blink back tears. Danaë, remembering Ice and the rest of the Gnosis' crew, who had pulled her out of the Matrix, pulled back to stand against the wall, knowing AK would worry if he saw her crying. A warm hand grasped her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly; she looked up to see Ghost, not looking at her, but with tears running down his dark face.

_"Oh my friends, my friends forgive me.  
"That I live and you are gone  
"There's a grief that can't be spoken  
"There's a pain goes on and on  
"Phantom faces at the window  
"Phantom shadows on the floor  
"Empty chairs at empty tables  
"Where my friends will meet no more.  
"Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me  
"What your sacrifice was for  
"Empty chairs at empty tables  
"Where my friends will sing no more..."_

There was a long moment of silence following Krsna's song, broken only by the sounds of muffled crying. Ghost drew Danaë to him in a close embrace meant as much to comfort him as her. They were shrouded in a dark corner, so no one could see as Danaë gently drew Ghost's head to her shoulder, allowing him to soak her shirt with his tears for Trinity.

Niobe and Morpheus were gone, as were Zee and Link. Krsna had vanished, not wanting any compliments on his tribute to the fallen. Sparks stayed, but he was for once solemn. It was then that Danaë remembered that Sparks had had a relationship with another operator on a fallen ship. It was a casual one, but losing Minx still had to hurt.

She could smell the alcohol on Ghost's breath, and gently drew him away, into the crowds and towards his room. He somehow got hold of another and drank it on their way back to his room. Ghost didn't drink much alcohol, so his tolerance level wasn't too high. He was stone drunk.

Danaë sighed as she found his room and somehow got the door open. Ghost was a surprisingly quiet drunk. She would have figured, what with his normal quietness and Zen-like behaviour, that he would have been a loud, obnoxious drunk. Ghost never reacted how she expected him to. Of, course, no one could have predicted that she would grow feelings for the much older man.

_For Pete's sake, girl, he has to be at least fifteen years older than you are!_ she thought as she dragged Ghost to his bed. She tipped him onto it, but his arms had locked around her waist, pulling her down with him. She froze, wide-eyed, as his lips brushed her neck.

_Okay, he's a horny drunk? Jesus H. Christ...._

"Trinity," he murmured, and Danaë felt her heart shatter. Oh, God, he was so drunk he thought she was Trinity? He was kissing her neck again, and Danaë moaned softly. _Just for tonight... pretend you're Trinity...._

"Ghost," she whispered at last, turning so that her lips were against his.

_Just for tonight...._

---------

Before Abel could get to Avalon, a new voice came on the mic, sounding smug. "This one's goin' out to _all_ the ladies," the man said just before the music kicked in. As one, Avalon and Horizon spun.

"_Some girls are crazy!  
__"Just listen to what I have to say about it:  
__"Ya gotta watch out for the beautiful ones..."_

The singer was a handsome blond man. As he sang about the beautiful ones, he pointed directly to Horizon, who was strangling the air in his general direction. He smirked as he sang the next lines.

"_They'll twist your head right off your neck  
__"And laugh about it with their friends  
__"That's just one night for them..."_

"You're a dead man, Henry Higgins!" Horizon shouted at the singer, who had launched into the chorus.

"_She shuts you down with her voice again  
__"And now are you listening?"_

Wingless was quite amused by this little interaction. Abel was not. The singer smelled familiar. Another familiar scent caught his nose, and he turned his head to see the big black man who had emptied two clips into his chest and been very startled when he'd gotten back up.

Gunner did not at all look happy.

"Three years," he said, almost to soft for even Abel to hear. Cujo would've had no problems, but Abel was not Cujo, _Thank Source for that!_ "Bastard vanishes off the face of the earth for three fucking years, and now he just turns up? He is fucking not getting off the hook for this."

Abel grinned to himself as the singer started a new verse.

"_These girls are crazy!  
__"Just listen to what I have to say about it:  
__"Ya gotta watch out for the younger ones..._"

Now he was pointing at Avalon, who flipped him the bird.

"_They'll tightly wrap you 'round their finger  
__"And brag to all their friends  
__"It's nothing but a game to them.  
__"They target you with their eyes  
__"And move with their lips  
__"And it pulls you in...._"

The two girls were laughing now. When the blond finished his song and stepped off, they both hugged him from either side. Abel cocked his ears, wishing he could trade his sense of smell for Cujo's hearing. He barely managed to catch Horizon's end of the conversation.

Ah, so the man's name was Davis.

Abel looked back at Gunner, who looked very suspicious of the blond. Wingless was beside him now, and they were talking quietly. Abel casually sauntered in their direction, picking up the tail end of Gunner's sentence, "... don't trust him."

Wingless nodded, but remained silent. "No one can vanish like that and then turn up like nothing happened. Davis is fucking somebody over, and I don't want to know who."

Intrigue bored Abel. He'd had more than enough of it at the _château_. He instead turned back, intending to snatch Avalon away and talk to her, but she was gone as a new song came on, dancing like mad. Abel leaned against the wall, content to watch as he got his first taste of Avalon break dancing in vinyl.

"Don't drool all over the floor. The janitor hates that," a deep voice rumbled in his ear.

Abel jumped and whirled, glaring daggers at the big program behind him. Source, but he hated how that blasted mercenary program could disguise his scent. "Maverick, you son of a bitch," he greeted the other.

The leonine man grinned toothily at him, running a hand through his grey-streaked hair. "Don't hate, Nose."

Abel snorted. "How're things with your girl now that she's in Zion?" he asked.

Maverick shrugged. "All right. She comes back to visit, and she's working on making it so programs from the Matrix can visit or live in Zion, if they want to."

Abel blinked. "Come again?"

Maverick grinned. "You know some programs want out. Take that Red fella. One of his nieces' great-great grandkids is running around Zion now."

Another blink. "How the hell do you figure?"

"Phantom did, actually. Said the kid looks like a scrawny female version of Red."

Abel shook his head, and Maverick caught him in a headlock, earning a yelp from the werewolf. "Now that we're comfortable," Maverick grinned ("The hell!?" Abel sputtered), "what is it you want with Avvy? Joe, Alex, an' me, we're rather fond of that girl."

Abel, knowing Maverick would understand him, spoke in German. "_I don't want to hurt her!"_ he said quickly. Theoretically, only silver bullets could kill him... but no one had tried strangling a werewolf before. He didn't want to find out that he could die of asphyxiation the hard way.

"_So talk, Nose,"_ Maverick replied amiably.

"_I love her, all right? Get off!"_

Surprisingly, Maverick did. "You _what!?_" He had switched back to English, so Abel did as well.

"You heard me," Abel growled as he adjusted his collar. "I just want to talk to her."

Maverick could only stare. None of the Merovingian's programs had dared fall in love with a human after Seraph's defection - though it was not for love, Seraph still had sided with the humans.

"Good luck to you with that," Maverick told him. "If the Frenchman finds out, there's going to be problems."

"_Keine__ Scheiße_," Abel muttered.

Morgain wrinkled her nose. The man trying to come on to her was drunk. Even worse, he didn't understand sign language and her friends were all occupied. She could barely understand his slurred speech, but she understood his intent and was starting to get angry.

_Just walk away. Don't make me kick your ass, pal_.

A hand slid around her shoulders as another voice said, "She's already taken, buddy. Get lost." Morgain looked up and felt her jaw drop open when she realised she was staring at Abel's profile. The man was smiling toothily at the drunk.

Morgain didn't realise that with Abel, any smile showing teeth was a threat. Some primal fear got through to the drunk, however, and he left without a word. Abel didn't remove his arm, just looked down at her and asked, "Are you all right?"

She blinked a few times, then signed 'What are you doing here?'

He smiled. "I'm not here to hurt you, Avvy. I just want to talk."

She thought about it, then nodded. 'Come with me,' she signed, taking Abel's wrist and leading him out of the club.

Out of the corner of his eye, Abel saw Avalon's friend corner Seraph and kiss him. He grinned. He had never seen such a terrified expression on Wingless' face. Source, he wished he could have had a camera. Had no one come on to the angel since Shyama left? He lost sight of them just as Seraph regrouped and took the offensive on that kiss.

A pity, but since he had similar plans in mind, not much of a pity.

He and Avalon walked in silence until they were in the very park where he had caught her nearly two years beforehand. She turned to him. 'What did you want?'

Abel's breath caught in his throat. She looked so beautiful in the starlight, it took him a moment to gather his thoughts. While he tried, he looked up at the moon. _New moon's tomorrow... good thing I decided to talk to her today_. He looked back down at her, then began to talk.

---------

Cain had easily followed Abel's scent to the city and to the club, where he'd kept carefully downwind of Abel at all times. It was a good thing Abel was so lovesick, or he would have noticed the other werewolf. He watched the pair walk to that park, then watched from downwind.

Cain liked this wind. It was bringing Abel's words to his ears. _Come on, Luna_, he thought. _Show me what you can do._

---------

**_(1) _**_Props go to Terry Pratchett for the Sudden Loomer lines._

_The songs are _I Will Survive_ by Gloria Gaynor, _Empty Chairs at Empty Tables_ from _Les Misérables, _and _Boy-Crazy_ by New Found Glory. I do not claim them, I was just borrowing the lyrics. Morgain doing the Hustle was inspired solely by the jail scene in _The Replacements_, where Keanu Reeves proves that he cannot dance. Of course, as he is very pretty regardless, this doesn't really matter. I just think it's good for a laugh._

_Current music: Linkin Park's _Pushing Me Away.


	25. New Moon

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twenty-Four  
****New Moon**

* * *

Morgain couldn't help but smile at Abel's very boyish way of trying to tell her that he liked her. Pitying the poor man, she put her fingers to his lips to shut him up, then signed, 'I love you too, you idiot.' He broke out in a lopsided grin which made him look even younger, reaching out to cup her cheek in one hand.

"Avvy, I-" He broke off as a familiar pain shot through him. _What?_ Abel looked up at the moon and froze. It was gone.

New moon.

_But, how- Luna!_

"C-C-Cain," he growled angrily as he suddenly realised what had happened. Avalon was beside him, looking worried.

No!

He couldn't control himself in forced transformations; he could kill her!

"Avvy," he groaned, "r-run! I c-can't stop it, I c-could hurt you! Run!"

Damn it, why wasn't she running!?

He could feel the fur sprouting over his body as pain ripped through him again, tearing a scream from his mouth that changed into a howl as his face elongated into a muzzle.

---------

Alex, Joe, and Maverick all heard the howl and ran outside to look at the moon. "Oh, fuck," Maverick whispered. "Someone's hacked the moon...."

"Avalon," Joe said.

"I'll get her," the mercenary said, running off.

---------

"Do you see now, O sister of Trinity?" Cain mocked her. The girl whirled to stare at him as he approached her. "You now see my cousin as he truly is - as _we_ truly are." Another step and he was beside her, dispassionately watching the change complete. "We are shape-changers, Miss Davidson. Werewolves. Monsters."

He looked to her to see her reaction, she was glaring at him. '_You're_ the only monster I see!' she signed furiously.

Cain laughed harshly, grabbing her by the arms and yanking her off the ground so they were face-to-face. "I'm only trying to save him future pain, girlie," he snarled, giving her a shake. "You will die, but we will not. We can not. It's both our blessing and our curse. What do you think your death, as imminent as it is," he grinned wolfishly at her, "would do to him? This is nothing more than an infatuation."

She hung her head as Cain yanked her closer, whispering the last sentence near her ear. Nothing for a moment, then she jerked her head upright so that the top of her head struck his nose hard enough to break it. He cried out, jerking away from her as he raised a hand to staunch the blood flowing from his nose. "You little bitch!" he snarled angrily, fur starting to sprout on his body. Her eyes widened, and she ran.

No way in Hell was some little human bitch going to get away from him. Cain took off after her.

_How ironic that it's Halloween_, Morgain thought as she ran. _Jesus Christ, this is straight out of one of those horror flicks those two like to watch!_ She looked over her shoulder and increased her pace. Good God, he was fast!

Tree!

Morgain didn't stop to think, she just jumped, wrapping her arms around a branch and pulling herself up, scrambling quickly to the next level.

"You think a tree will stop me?" she heard Cain growl before his hand closed around her ankle and yanked hard, pulling the young woman down. She hit the ground hard enough that the air was forced from her lungs, then Cain was there, his left hand wrapping around her throat. Morgain struggled, but Cain was actually intelligent and held her down with a knee on her stomach. She was able to kick his back, but Cain took no notice of her blows.

There was a snarl, then a wolf slammed into Cain, its jaws clamping tightly around his arm, knocking the werewolf down. "Abel!?" Cain cried, staring in shock at the growling wolf which had released him. The wolf lunged for Cain's throat, but Cain got his arm in the way, then kicked the wolf off.

Abel, if that was who the wolf was, landed on its feet and lunged once more; Cain leapt away, transforming all the way to do battle with his cousin. A terrified Morgain sat where Cain had pulled her, watching the ensuing dogfight with wide eyes.

A hand grabbed her shoulder, and she opened her mouth in a silent cry and jerked away. "Hey, kid, calm down, it's just me!" a voice cried as she was turned to face the owner.

_Maverick!_

Crying, she threw herself in the mercenary's arms, afraid that Abel might be hurt or worse, killed.

Maverick held her, watching the wolves battle. _I've never seen him that lucid under a new moon_, he thought. _It's almost like he's in his right mind... but that's impossible, the price the werewolves pay for changing shapes is a once-a-month forced transformation and loss of their minds for the duration of the change!_

Avalon was in danger here. "C'mon, kid," he said, gently drawing her away from the battle, "let's get you somewhere safe." She shook her head and pulled free, her eyes locked on the wolf fight. Damn it. She did love him back.

_Merv's__ gonna_ love_ this one._

At last, Cain ran, tail between his legs and wounded badly. Growling, Abel turned to Maverick and Avalon. _Oh, shit_. He began to stalk towards them, and Maverick pulled out his Beretta 92 FS, prepared to shoot the werewolf if necessary. He did not anticipate Avalon getting directly in his line of fire and holding out her hand to the snarling wolf.

Reckless girl.

Abel sniffed her hand, still growling... then crouched in front of her with a doglike whine, nuzzling her palm. Maverick let out the breath he hadn't realised he was holding and holstered the silver bullet-stocked pistol. Perhaps he recognised her scent? Maverick mused. How much would the werewolf remember of this?

Avalon rose to her feet and walked back to him, Abel tagging along at her heels. 'I want to go home,' she signed. "All right," Maverick said. He led the odd couple to his car, helping the aching Avalon get in (Abel leapt in her lap), and drove them back to the apartment building.

Avalon kissed Maverick's cheek and thanked him for the ride home, then crawled tiredly out of the car, Abel following like an obedient puppy. This was an odd development. Programs falling for humans? Maverick smiled as he thought of his own human love. Thank God for this new, more tolerant Cycle.

Morgain let herself into the apartment and didn't even bother to make for her room. She just kicked off her boots and collapsed onto the sofa, vinyl and all. After a moment, Abel leapt onto the couch after her and curled up at her side. Smiling, the young woman fell asleep stroking his coarse fur.

The Matrix shuddered for a moment as Luna hacked the moon once more, changing it from new to waxing crescent. Abel had had enough for one night. Smiling, the lunar program watched as Abel changed back into a man in his sleep and unconsciously wrapped his arms around his woman.

---------

_Awwww__, fluff._

_Current music: _Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better) _from Annie Get Your Gun._


	26. The Morning After, Parts One and Two

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twenty-Five A  
****The Morning After:  
****Part 1**

* * *

Danaë awoke, sore and naked, in the arms of an equally naked Ghost. It took her a moment to gather her thoughts, then images of the past night flooded into her mind, and she cringed. She slid out of his arms; luckily, Ghost slept like a dead man, so he didn't stir. This was bad.

Danaë looked at the sleeping man, and felt her heart break. She had taken advantage of his drunken stupor and led him to believe she was Trinity. She hadn't been entirely sober herself, of course, but still.... Quickly, she dressed and slid out of Ghost's room. It was early in the Zion 'morning', so no one saw her leave.

She didn't return to her room, just wandered over Zion, sinking further into a depressed state that dragged her further down as she headed to the engineering level to be alone.

"They're starting to suspect," she heard someone say. Eyes widening, she ducked down to where she couldn't be seen. "Is that so?" mused another voice that made Dana's blood run cold. She remembered that voice, remembered its owner holding her against him, razor blade to her neck, saying softly to her, "_We don't think we'll kill you... not just yet._..."

Even the memory scared her.

"Yes, it is!" the other voice growled. "There's rumours going around Zion about a part-program being here. A lot of people think it's bullshit, but Deadbolt believes it, and he is _not_ someone D'Artagnan wants looking for him."

"That is an excuse. _He_ wants the Ghost and the woman, and he wants them now."

"Ever hear of shore leave? _Logos_ isn't going out for at least three days."

"That is ample time to give them Kishen."

"And what does the Bomb-Happy One have to do with it?"

"He is like D'Artagnan."

There was silence for a long moment. "You lie," the voice growled.

"We cannot lie," the other voice replied. "It is not in our programming. The Frenchman wants him out of the way, and he wants the woman and the Ghost."

"If he gets them, the girl will go in after them."

"That is our hope," purred the British accent, causing Danaë to shudder.

"You and your twin are sick bastards."

"Not at all. She caused us injury. She intrigues us."

"Give them Kishen and get the others in the Matrix. We will take it from there."

"Fine."

"Oh, and Asmodeus?"

"What?"

"Do not let him fail."

Footsteps approached, and Danaë ducked back into the concealing shadows. She looked out again to see a dark head walk past, too far away for her to see who it was.

But she knew the name. Asmodeus was a Zionite, a young loner who was even more antisocial than AK. It was rumoured that he had a sympathy for the machines, but this had never been proven, mainly because his vocabulary consisted largely of monosyllabic words such as 'yes', 'no', and 'hn'. As far as the Council knew, no deals could be made with those three words. Danaë had heard Asmodeus say more in that conversation than she had in the four or five years she'd been free.

Frowning, Danaë started to sneak after him, but winced as she pulled her sore abdomen. Immediately guilt overtook her, guilt over her "seduction" of Ghost. Granted, he had kissed _her_ first, but she shouldn't have gone along with it.

She hadn't been thinking.

Danaë crept back to her niche, bringing her knees close to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, allowing guilty tears to fall. That was where Sparks found her an hour later.

Strangely enough, the operator didn't say anything, just hugged her. Danaë found herself spilling the story to him, causing his eyes to widen. _Ghost gets horny when he's wasted? Jesus Christ, no wonder he doesn't drink! And he thought she was Trinity? Damn fool. He can't let go_, Sparks thought as he tried to comfort the guilt-ridden girl.

Sparks couldn't believe he was the only one on the ship who realised that Danaë had a major self-esteem problem. Good God, it was evidenced in how vastly different her RSI was from her physical body! He had talked to AK about it, and her foster father had mentioned that not much had been done to give the girl good self-esteem when she was still plugged in. The middle child between a mama's boy and a daddy's girl, she had often been the odd one out.

She had first come to the Rebellion's attention under the pseudonym Danaë when she was looking up methods of treating multiple gunshot wounds and wounds caused by explosives on the internet. This wasn't exactly on the list of what a fourteen-year-old girl Needed To Know, so the _Gnosis_ had been ordered to survey her.

The operator nearly had a heart attack when they looked in and found her taking care of a wounded _Agent_. Then he nearly fainted when he realised that her patient was a _wounded_ Agent. Word went out that someone had managed to hurt an Agent, which eventually led them to Krsna, the Mad Bomber. Neo had had to be called in because the kid left no virtual trail for them to follow, meanwhile Danaë was getting to know the Agent they identified as Jones.

The operator actually _did_ faint when Jones, for reasons unknown to probably even him, protected his caretaker when Agents came to bug her and wipe her memory of the incident. To this day, Danaë still didn't realise that her patient had been an Agent.

As far as Sparks knew, only Jones had treated her like a person, not a third wheel. Then the _Gnosis_ had unplugged her, bringing her to Zion, and she had made a name for herself in the hospital wing during the final battle. This had helped, but Danaë still had trouble with her self-esteem. Her crush on Ghost had been particularly bad for her mental health, and now this....

God, he wanted to punch Ghost so bad.

Not for sleeping with her, of course, Ghost most likely would not remember that, but for failing to see what his depression was indirectly doing to her.

Damn it.

Sparks had just about had his fill of angst. He was a light-hearted guy by nature, and the _Logos_ was starting to get to him. He was going to find a way to fix this one, or he might just go crazy.

---------

The crew of the _Logos _was walking for the ship when Commander Locke and five soldiers caught up with them. "Niobe, wait!" Locke called. Niobe made an odd face that said 'The next person who interferes in my departure is Going To _Die_' before turning around with her usual bland expression.

"What is it, Jason?"

She still called him Jason; no one knew why.

Locke gave her an unreadable look as he said, "I'm afraid one of your crew members can't accompany you."

"And why not?" Niobe demanded, going straight into 'I-Will-Kick-Your-Ass-If-You-Even-_Think_-Of-Messing-With-_My_-Crew' mode.

Locke did not answer, instead he turned to another of the crew. "Krsna Aatmik, I must ask you to accompany to the brig."

The man seemed to pale some, but suspiciously demanded, "Why?"

"A matter of security was brought to our attention," Locke replied, "and some research was done to confirm our suspicions. You hide your tracks well, Aatmik, but we know the truth now."

"What 'truth'?" Ghost demanded.

"He's a program."

* * *

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twenty-Five B  
****The Morning After:  
****Part 2**

* * *

A rather dishevelled and smiling Horizon made her way into her apartment, a certain white jacket hanging off her shoulders. Seraph was surprisingly old-fashioned, but even though he wasn't for premarital, he did make out like a pro.

Horizon flipped on the light and stared at the figures on her couch. There was Avvy, curled up with the man she'd walked out of _Freedman_ with. Horizon almost squealed, it looked so cute. She was all but pinned between the man - Abel, Seraph had said he was called - and the back of the couch, his arms holding her against him. Grinning, she ran to get her camera. Blackmail photos were blackmail photos, after all.

---------

Avalon woke slowly, knowing and liking where she was. Abel made for a nice blanket and pillow rolled into one. She snuggled closer to him, nestling her head against his shoulder, and was startled when his lips pressed softly against her forehead. She twisted slightly in his arms, looking up at him with a soft, tired smile. 'G'morning,' she signed.

He kissed her cheek. "Morning. I'm glad you weren't hurt."

'I knew you wouldn't hurt me.'

Abel wasn't as confident as she was, but he figured that it didn't matter right now. The situation was over, he'd plotted Cain's punishment, and she was here, in his arms, right now, therefore everything was good.

She shifted in his arms, turning to face him, nuzzling his neck a little before reaching up to rub her thumb over his soul patch. 'Do you have any idea of how sexy this little patch of chin fuzz is?' she signed with her other hand.

He grinned, kissing the top of her head again. "I do now." She moved up so that their faces were level and rubbed her cheek against his.

Abel turned his head and captured her lips in a soft, chaste kiss that quickly moved beyond chaste and well into the realms of sin. Unfortunately for both, before Abel could get past second, the light flipped on. "It's all well and good that you love each other," a tired Horizon said, half in her native Spanish, "but could you please hold off on love-making until after I go to work? The walls are thin."

Avalon turned a very brilliant red as Horizon vanished back into her room; Abel just chuckled. "Don't worry about it," he told her in a low tone. "We'll make up for it after she leaves...."

'We can't,' she signed sadly. 'I go to work before she does.'

Had this work of fanfiction been for an anime, Abel would have fallen off the couch in a very comical manner. However, as it is not, Abel just sighed and whispered in her ear, "Waiting will just make it better, then," and laughed as she turned bright red again.

He kissed her again, but this time kept himself under control and did not progress past first base. He almost lost control when her fingers slid into his hair, but managed to calm himself and keep control of the situation.

At last they both rose, Avalon with slightly swollen lips and both of them looking rather dishevelled. She rose to her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, vanishing into her room to change.

"She's quite a piece, isn't she?"

Abel turned to Horizon, startled to see her up. The Hispanic girl grinned. "I'm a morning person. She isn't, and yet she seems to be surprisingly horny in the morning. Weird." Abel arched an eyebrow at the blunt girl, then grinned as he realised who he was smelling all over her own scent of toffee.

"I've heard tell that Seraph gets rather amorous in the evening. Is this true?"

She blushed and returned to her task of making coffee. Abel smirked and grabbed a mug for himself, pulling the pot out from under her hand before she could get herself some. She glared until he poured the coffee into her mug before filling his own. "Old habits die hard," he said by way of excuse, grinning.

There was a series of knocks to the beat of 'shave and a haircut, two bits,' and Horizon laughed. "Sounds like Avvy wants her coffee," she teased the other girl as she tossed her friend a mug. Avalon caught it left-handed, mainly because she was using her right to flip Horizon the bird.

Abel again played the gentleman and poured Avalon her coffee, discreetly taking in her skirt and polo shirt. They both smelled of different teas and sandwiches, indicating that she worked at least part-time in a tea shop. Abel then got an interesting mental picture of Avalon in her Trinity outfit standing in a tea shop and almost choked on his coffee.

He coughed and grinned at the two girls, not explaining what he found amusing. They both glared, at least until Abel offered to walk Avalon to work. Horizon grinned and all but shoved them out the door.

Neither said a word (or signed, in Horizon's case). Abel simply reached down to take her hand in his and didn't let go. As they walked out of the building, Abel felt eyes on him and looked back to see a jacket-devoid Wingless watching him.

Shit, the angel had put on some muscle since leaving the _château_…

Abel got the message. Horizon was Seraph's, and messing with her would not be a good thing. Abel made a mental note to keep Horizon's relationship with Seraph a secret.

---------

He dropped Avalon off at work, leaving all her co-workers quizzing her about him, then made his way back to the _château_, where he finally let loose the anger that had been building inside of him. "**_YOU'RE A DEAD MAN, CAIN WULFRIC!_**" he yelled.

In the library, Cain fell off his couch and smacked his head on the table. "_Shit_!" he yelped as he sprang to his feet seconds before the doors were flung open and a very pissed off Abel stormed in.

A very amused Matthias watched as Abel grabbed his larger cousin by the trench coat lapel and pinned him against the nearest book case. Abel was speaking German, but Matthias had downloaded knowledge of every language he could get his hands on, so he understood.

"If you _ever_," Abel snarled, the vitriolic sound of the German tongue making it sound even more threatening - not that it needed the help - "try to interfere with my love life _again_," he slammed Cain against the bookcase for emphasis and proceeded go into long, graphic detail of the torture he would inflict upon the other werewolf, starting with his balls and working his way around from there.

"And if you _ever_ try to hurt her," and he started another list, this one even more graphic than the first and incorporating methods medieval and Asian. He then proceeded to punch Cain hard enough to knock the other wolf out. "And that was for making me change. You know how much it hurts, you bastard," he spat at the unconscious body before stomping off.

Matthias winced.

"Y'think wolfy-boy is pissed?" Red murmured in his ear.

"Just a bit," he replied, not looking at the constantly shell-changing program. He'd never seen anyone get as bored with his shell as quickly as Red did.

Red sighed. "I have never seen them fight like that in the two Cycles I've known 'em."

"Ah, but Cain hadn't done anything that _stupid_ in two Cycles you've known them," came another voice that caused both Matthias and Red to jump.

"Hello, Jacob," Matthias said.

The dark-skinned program nodded to them both. "The Frenchman is not going to like this turn of events."

"No. He isn't."

"Seth's gone down to meet with that human again."

"What are the terms?"

"Same as last time. At least this human is consistent."

"Unlike some humans we know..."

"I resent that!"

"I was referring to D'Artagnan and his gofer Asmodeus."

"Oh."

"Y'know, that brings up an interesting thought: Who's more human, a part-program or Red here?"

"I'm not human."

"But you were."

"Do I bring up your former state of being?"

Jacob shut up.

* * *

**_Funkless_**_: Wait a minute, what spelling mistake? Where? And Heywood is very hard to forget. -shudders- But yes, I am a GAFFer and proud of it._


	27. Krsna

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twenty-Six  
****Krsna**

* * *

_"Krsna Aatmik, I must ask you to accompany us to the brig."_

_The man seemed to pale some, but suspiciously demanded, "Why?" _

_"A matter of security was brought to our attention," Locke replied, "and some research was done to confirm our suspicions. You hide your tracks well, Aatmik, but we know the truth now."_

_"What 'truth'?" Ghost demanded._

_"He's a program."_

* * *

The moment those three words left Locke's mouth, Krsna dropped his bag and bolted, pushing past two of the soldiers and trying to lose himself in the crowd. "After him!" one of the soldiers yelled, and they took off after the Indian. Locke did not chase after him; he remained to take the brunt of Niobe's anger.

And he took it like a man.

Niobe yelled a lot, mainly on how the hell could he think Krsna wasn't loyal after the dock battle. During the tirade, Danaë snuck off unnoticed, except by the one who never missed her departures. Finally, he'd had enough and grabbed her by the shoulders. "It was out of my hands, Niobe!" he told her. "I'm doing this for _his_ safety!"

"How the hell will he be safe in the brig!?" Sparks demanded, forgetting protocol at this logical fallacy.

"It will prevent others from murdering him because of what he is," Locke snarled back. There was startled silence from the rest of the crew.

Locke sighed, running a hand over his hair. "By the time I found out about this, some of those who have had... bad encounters with programs were forming a lynching party. I had to take action, and I had to do it fast. I'm sorry."

Ghost nodded. "It makes sense, unfortunately. Niobe, can you delay takeoff until Danaë gets back with whatever information she gets from him?" Niobe blinked, then realised that the little redhead had indeed vanished. Locke frowned, but Ghost explained, "Those two disappear every once in awhile. They each have their own hiding spot that only the other knows about."

Locke muttered something under his breath and said, "I'll stall for as long as I can. I suggest you do the same until your medic gets back. I'm doing everything I can to keep this from reaching crisis levels."

"If that boy dies or is grounded," Niobe breathed dangerously, "something _will_ reach crisis level."

"Kris?" Danaë called softly. She was back on the engineering level, outside one of the places where only she or lean, lanky Krsna could fit. It was a lot bigger on the inside than it looked, so when the long-fingered brown hand emerged from the shadows, she accepted it and let the bomber pull her in.

The shadows hid his face, but she knew he was scared. But then, after the bomb Locke had dropped, who wouldn't be? "It's not true," Krsna said quietly, a slight tremor in his voice. "Not entirely, anyway."

"So tell me."

And he did; told her about his upbringing in New Delhi with his grandmother Shyama after the death of his parents at the hands of Agents hunting down the Aatmik family. Shyama managed to hide him and teach him to use the ability he had inherited from her: Invisibility. Due to the three-quarters of him being human, however, his talent had limits. He couldn't be invisible for more than an hour straight, and then he needed at least another hour before he could vanish for another hour. Like Shyama, he could make things invisible by touching them which fortunately didn't tax his limits, but he could also make people become invisible with him, and that cut his time by fifteen minutes. The more people he tried to take with him, the less he could hold it.

He also told of their flight to Germany, when Shyama had let the Agents catch her in order to allow her thirteen-year-old grandson to escape. Krsna hadn't seen her since; he assumed she was dead. He had wandered in Germany until a family on the outskirts of that part of the City had taken him in out of pity. They taught him the language and took care of him, and they became a family of sorts.

Then people came looking for him.

Krsna had heard of the Merovingian thanks to Shyama, who had once worked for the Frenchman, and it didn't take the boy, now sixteen, very long to figure out that these men worked for him. When he realised that the Merovingian was offering him a position, he refused, saying that he'd already found acceptance.

The Merovingian did not take refusal well.

The next day he had come home from school to find his foster family dead. He knew immediately that the Merovingian would not be taking 'no' for an answer from him. Krsna vanished then, popping in and out of visibility randomly, always making sure he had some strength for vanishing in case of emergencies, and eventually made his way to the Core Network... aka Agent Central.

That was where the real trouble began.

He'd seen an Agent chasing down a young man and had calmly drawn his gun, becoming invisible, wondering idly if Agents could dodge what they couldn't see coming.

Apparently not. His first shot had caught the Agent in the leg, though the rest missed completely; Krsna had never claimed to be a good shot. For good measure, he had also taken out a homemade grenade and thrown it near the suited man, then made himself scarce.

A month later, he'd finally been tracked down by a man named Neo and had been freed. Krsna paused when he mentioned this. "I'm still not quite sure why I took the red pill," he said. "It could have killed me. Hell, it nearly _did_ kill me."

Danaë was startled. "How?"

The Indian smiled. "I'm not entirely human. A part of my consciousness is program. I don't know how the hell it works, but it does. That red pill just about deleted the program part of me. I don't know what unplugging is like for others, but it was extremely painful to me. It felt like part of my mind was being ripped out of my skull. I'm convinced that if the One hadn't been there, I _would_ have died. He knew. He knew what I was, he could read it in my coding. I don't know what the hell he did, but it saved my life." He grinned a bit sadly. "He really hated losing potentials."

"Can you still use your programming?" Danaë asked him softly.

"Only in the Matrix," Krsna replied, "and even then, the old rules still apply. Ask Sparks and Link, they saw me do it."

Danaë smiled at him. "What will you do?"

"I figure I'll just stay here for awhile," Krsna said. "The Oracle told me this would happen, you know. There's someone like me in Zion... and I don't think he or she has Zion's best interests in mind."

"I know," Danaë said, then told him about Asmodeus and the conversation she'd overheard.

"Moody 'Modeus? Figures. So the other guy calls himself D'Artagnan, eh? All for one, my ass." Krsna then launched into a long tirade in his native Farsi with some delving into German before commenting, "You know, I don't really see this as being Modey's style. Stabbing someone in the back literally, sure. Clobbering them upside the head, why not? Subtly driving them to suicide, no problem. But this? No way. Not his style at all."

"Why not?"

"No challenge. No fun."

Danaë smiled, and Krsna ruffled her hair. "You better run on back," he said softly. "Niobe'll get pissed if she has to leave both of us behind." She nodded and ran off.

Krsna watched her run off and sighed. _Damn it...._


	28. Betrayal

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twenty-Seven  
****Betrayal**

* * *

The mood of the _Logos _was a sombre one as they left Zion without Krsna. Danaë had told them what he had told her and then she had vanished for awhile. After awhile, she had turned up again in the Core to pester Sparks a little. "What do you want?" Sparks asked her after five minutes of her half-hearted bothering.

"Can you jack me into Ghost's program?" she replied, not looking at him.

Sparks suppressed the urge to groan and play shrink. "You sure, kid?" he asked instead. She nodded, and he sighed. "All right..." Sparks plugged her in, then went off to locate Ghost. He and the other man needed to have a little chat.

---------

Ghost emerged from the "chat" with Sparks a little shell-shocked. Without a word, he went to the Core and made the operator plug him in so he could talk to Danaë. "If you listen in," he threatened Sparks, "You will _not_ be needing my boots."

Sparks contrived and failed to look innocent as he slid Ghost into the program, but he also made himself scarce.

Finding Danaë was easy enough. Ghost was concerned, however, over her RSI's appearance. It still didn't look much like her. A brunette in the false realities but a redhead in the real world... why didn't she like her appearance?

The young woman was curled up near one of the large boulders that dotted his garden, her shoulders shaking. Ghost winced when he realised she was crying. Obviously, they needed to talk. He approached her on cat-soft feet and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Danaë?"

She immediately swiped a hand over her eyes and looked up at him, startled. "Ghost?" He knelt beside the girl and drew her against his chest, his strong arms preventing an escape. He heard her soft gasp, but she didn't fight him.

"I feel as if I owe you an apology," he said seriously.

"No, Ghost," she said quickly, "I'm the one-"

He cut her off. "Danaë. I am the one who misled you, not the other way around. The night of the memorial... I was not as drunk as I led you to believe."

He could feel her freeze. "I didn't mean to call you Trinity that time, Danaë. Neither of us were fully sober, but I remember the gift you gave me. I knew what I was doing, as did you... but you left before I could talk to you."

"Oh," she said in a small, soft voice.

He smiled and tightened his hug momentarily. "Danaë, I've been meaning to ask you: Why is your RSI so different from your appearance?"

"... I wanted to be pretty...."

Her answer startled Ghost. "But you are pretty," he said, confused. How could she think she wasn't pretty? All the philosophy in the world would never unravel the female psyche, Ghost decided.

His words were rewarded with a soft smile. "I guess... I also wanted to look more like Trinity."

"I don't want you to look like Trinity," he said. "I want you to look like you." She looked stunned, but before she could say more, Ghost silenced her with a gentle kiss.

On cue, his cell phone went off. He sighed as he broke away and answered it. "What is it?"

"Trouble. We've got an emergency call from the _Caduceus_," Sparks answered. "Get Danaë unplugged and get ready to head to the Construct." Ghost frowned and sent the girl out, then his Zen garden faded to the sheer white of the Construct.

---------

"What's going on?" Danaë asked Sparks as Ghost and Niobe prepared themselves.

"One of Pippin's boys found himself in trouble in the Matrix. The chairs have a virus now, so they can't jack in to help Davis out, and he's nowhere near an exit."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Frenchie's boys," Sparks replied as he transferred Ghost and Niobe to Davis' location.

Danaë 's eyes widened. "No, Sparks; it's a trap!" she cried, too late.

The Matrix code on the monitors fluctuated, then turned an alarming shade of red. "Shit!" he yelled, diving for Danaë and knocking her out of the way as the station went haywire, electricity dancing over the monitors and Spark's chair.

Both of them stared at the smoking station, then turned their eyes to Ghost and Niobe. Both captain and first mate were unharmed and breathing. Sparks returned his gaze to his station. "That would have hurt," he muttered.

---------

Niobe froze for a moment, and Ghost gave her a look. "What is it?"

"A feeling," she answered at last. "Something's wrong."

Ghost frowned, handing Niobe his cell phone. She dialled the _Logos_ and waited. "No one's picking up," she said after a moment.

"That's not good."

"Be on your guard," Niobe ordered. "Something funny is going on here. Let's grab Davis and get to an exit."

---------

"Shit!" Sparks yelped as some residual shock got him again. He shook his hand.

"Put on the damn gloves and you won't get shocked," Danaë told him, sharp in her worry.

He just glared at her and continued working on repairing the station. "So you think this D'Artagnan guy is one of Pippin's lot?"

She nodded. "He can't be Asmodeus, because 'Modeus is Zion-born and has no holes."

"Makes sense. I just wish I knew what Moody 'Modeus has to do with this. A thousand psychologists couldn't figure that boy out."

Danaë nodded absently as her delicate fingers cross-wired some of the connections. They were lucky Sparks knew a quick jury-rig for this stuff. At the same time, Sparks was running an antivirus to flush any other surprises out of his systems. The operator was incredibly pissed off that someone had sabotaged _his_ ship and _his_ systems.

"We're almost done," he told her, earning another absent nod.

---------

Ghost was the one to find the blond rebel crouched in the corner of a church, terrified. Niobe came running at Ghost's call, and they reassured the frightened Davis before Niobe called the _Caduceus_ to let them know they'd got him.

Before the operator could pick up, Niobe felt something prick her arm; the next thing she knew, she'd lost consciousness.

Ghost heard Niobe fall and turned to aim at the suddenly grinning Davis. An internal alarm went off, and he turned again just in time to take a punishing blow to the gut that knocked the air from his lungs and the awareness from his mind; he too fell into blackness.

Red hoisted the woman over his shoulder, not very pleased with playing delivery boy. He was a _thief_, for God's sake!

"Ya _could_ help, y'know," he snapped at D'Artagnan.

"What for?" the smirking blond replied. "I have a few other packages to prepare for the Frenchman."

He all but skipped off, leaving Red longing to put a bullet in his back. God, but he hated the little fucker. He was too arrogant for his own good.

Red sighed as he pulled the other rebel over his other shoulder and made his way to the _château_.

---------

"Where the hell is Gunner?"

"I haven't seen him in a good week."

"He hasn't reported in."

"I heard tell he sold us out to that French guy; he's prolly skipped town by now."

"We are going to have to show him the folly of his actions. You have the location of those two girls?"

"They're roommates."

"Good. Go get them. We will show him what happens to traitors."


	29. Troubles

**The Matrix: Legacy  
****Twenty-Eight  
****Troubles**

* * *

Horizon flopped onto her couch with a relieved sigh, kicking off her flats. That was the only bitch about her job as school librarian: she was on her feet for hours. But then, she was on her feet because she liked to be with the children, to encourage and help them… Ah, well.

"Miss Sabé?"

Horizon sat up to grin at Sati. "Hey, kid. Whatcha doing?"

"Do you have another book I can borrow?" the girl asked with a smile, holding out _The Hobbit_.

Horizon took the book and considered for a moment. "Well... you wanna give the_ Lord of the Rings_ trilogy a try?"

Sati nodded eagerly, and Horizon stood with a low groan, then went for the _Fantasy_ section of her and Avalon's shared library. She scanned the titles until she came to the bookcase specifically for all of their LOTR stuff. Wisely, she selected the copy of _The Fellowship of the Ring_ that did _not_ have one of the movie actors on the cover. As she turned back to Sati, she saw the car on the street below out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head to the window so she could see fully, she saw that it was empty. She also recognised that car.

The book fell from numbed hands. "Sati!" she snapped at the girl. "Quickly, hide yourself!" Startled, the girl fled to Avalon's room. Horizon slammed the door shut and drew her Beretta Inox before ducking behind the sofa.

_Only reason Gunner's buddies would be coming here would be if he skipped out on 'em. Shit._

Horizon never got the chance to use her gun. There was a hissing noise, and the room flooded with gas. The Inox fell from numbed fingers as the Hispanic woman collapsed.

---------

Morgain paused outside the door. She sniffed the air a few times, detecting the faintest traces of some sort of chemical. That was bad. Carefully, she opened the door. The smell was stronger, and Avalon started to feel woozy.

_Gas_.

Morgain stepped back, pulling her scarf from around her neck and wrapping it around her nose and mouth before sneaking back in. There was no sign of Horizon. Lying on the floor where it had been dropped was _the Fellowship of the Ring_.

Something had happened to Horizon.

Morgain saw that the door to her room was open; she'd not left it that way. The mute girl slipped into the kitchen, reaching under the table to get the gun that Gunner insisted she carry - a Beretta Cheetah. It was already loaded, but she checked it anyway, in case the intruders had found it.

They hadn't.

Gun in hand, she slid into her room and checked for any sign of intrusion. Her bedspread was slightly skewed. Getting to her hands and knees, she looked under the bed to see Sati lying unconscious on her floor. Wide-eyed, she pulled the girl out and checked her pulse; luckily, the Indian was still alive.

Horizon missing, Sati unconscious, the lingering scent of gas. The whole thing reeked of hostage-gathering. She had to get out of here with Sati. _Now_.

---------

Cain was not thrilled about his latest duty. He _still_ hurt from the beating Abel had given him, and now he had to collect the girl that was the cause of the beating and her friend to hold up some sort of deal with a human? Bah.

He paused outside the apartment building that also housed the Oracle, giving the air a cautious sniff. Was that…?

Fear.

And some sort of knock-out gas.

_Shit_, the black-haired werewolf thought, running inside. Smelling broken machinery, he avoided the elevator **1** and took the stairs three at a time.

He could smell men. And the gas scent was stronger now; his nose was twitching. Luckily, he and all programs were immune to knockout gas. Under the heavy odour of the men, he could smell Avalon and another woman. No blood scent; that was good.

Cain surprised and neutralised the lookout before he could cry a warning, then entered the apartment. His nose picked out what had happened as he systematically found and killed the intruders on the principle that they had entered a woman's home without permission.

So, these men had flooded the room with gas and then taken the woman who smelled of coffee and Wingless and presumably was Avalon's roommate. _Smooth move, boys_, he thought; taking Wingless' woman was asking to die.

He also smelled the little Exile child; apparently she'd hidden somewhere and most likely been affected by the gas; she was the first program to be created simply to exist, after all. Quite like a human. Avalon had come in, gotten a gun - smelled like a Beretta - found Sati, and escaped. Cain felt himself gain some respect for the girl. Maybe she was worthy of Abel.

It occurred to Cain that he had most likely just killed the men responsible for kidnapping Wingless' woman.

_Oops_.

His nose caught a new scent, shamrocks and mist, and he whirled to see a small girl with the _biggest_ copper eyes he had ever seen. Wait, there was another scent, this one of ocean spray. However, he couldn't see the owner. "I know you're there, kid, so you might as well come out of hiding," he said, trying not to grin. His grins weren't exactly reassuring.

A pause, then a young man who looked remarkably like Esau, sans goatee, came into view. "Who are you?" the teenager growled, untrusting of this stranger standing amidst dead bodies.

Shit, the bugger was half-progr- oh, _shit_, no wonder he looked like Esau! Blasted kid _was_ Esau's! If the Merovingian found out, Jacob's partner would be in _deep_ shit.

…

Cain could profit from this. In the _château, _it was a good idea to have blackmail material on at least one person, preferably as many as possible.

"They call me Cain," he answered, completely poker-faced. The first child signed something, and the boy translated, unaware that Cain's lack of a reply came from being utterly shell-shocked.

"You are Abel's cousin. Where is Abel?"

Cain opened his mouth to reply that he neither knew nor cared when he suddenly caught Wingless' scent and turned in time to receive a fist to the gut. It was a punishing blow that made his eyes widen in pain as air was violently expelled from his lungs.

The follow-up blow caught him between the legs and dropped the werewolf like a stone. Cain took his punishment in silence, not even allowing a wince to cross his face. He was given no time to recover before Wingless grabbed him by the collar of his trench coat and hauled him off the ground – Cain was only an inch taller than Wingless.

"_Where_," the angel demanded, fury smouldering in his eyes, "_is Sabé!?"_ Cain blinked at him dazedly. How in the hell was he supposed to know? He hadn't started tracking her yet.

Wingless let him down a little ways so that they were eye-to-eye - or rather, eye-to-shades, as Wingless was wearing sunglasses and Cain's had been knocked off in the short beating - and spoke in German. "_Answer me, wolf, or a silver bullet will find your heart_," he hissed. Not yet having regained the ability to speak, Cain raised a shaking arm to press his fingers against Wingless' temple.

Within seconds, Cain had uploaded his doings of the past two hours to the traitor, including the beating he'd just taken. The angel blinked, dropping Cain and sorting through the new information.

There was no apology, but Cain didn't expect one. Seraph only apologised to those he tested, which even now was a softening of his character. Judging by those hits, though, nothing of his _technique_ has softened…

Esau's teenage brat took pity on him and knelt beside the helpless werewolf, placing a hand on his shoulder. Soothing relief spread through his coding, and Cain relaxed as it reached his abused genitals. Source, but that had _hurt_.

The full implication of this sank in.

In the four Cycles he had spent in the _château_, Cain had never discovered what sort of programs Jacob and Esau were. Like many, neither spoke of their time before the Merovingian, but they were some of his best killers, so it was generally assumed that, like the Twins, they had been created to be assassins.

How wrong that assumption was.

Esau… was a fucking _healer_.

---------

**_Funkless : _******_Are you positive they were errors? I ask only because I have a tendency to utilise UK spellings… Anyway, how'd you guess that Krsna was a program? I ask out of curiosity; I don't like being obvious. Glad you like the latest chapters._

**_… :_**_ I'm sorry if you think that _Legacy_ is a cliché to other "sotries", but I'm not inclined to take criticism from someone too cowardly to post their name or an e-mail address so that I may ask what, precisely, is cliché. Last I checked, the clichés in the Matrix section are fluffy bunny Twins and Twinfics, not the Twins as sexual harassers. Or maybe it's the fact that I'm not bashing the Merovingian? No, wait, Mero-bashing is a popular sport as well… Come back when you grow a backbone._

---------

_Music: _Bittersweet Symphony_ by the Verve_


	30. Tobias

**The Matrix: Legacy  
Twenty-Nine  
Tobias  
  
**

* * *

**  
**

"Okay, we're back on-line!" Sparks declared, starting the Matrix feed back up. And subsequently swore. "We're too late!"

Danaë looked over his shoulder, but she couldn't read the green text. "What's going on?"

"They got Niobe and Ghost," he growled. "They're being transported somewhere, probably the _château_. And I got some weird readings on the guy driving 'em."

"Like what?"

"It... well, it fluctuates. Sometimes he reads as human, sometimes as a program... it's weirder than Krsna's reading."

"Hn."

Sparks stared at her. She had just used Asmodeus' catchphrase. No one used that "word" if they could help it. "Jack me in, Sparks," she growled, cold fire in her eyes.

"Uh-uh, no way. Danaë, it is _way_ too-"

"The hell it is!" she snapped at him. "Sparks, I'm back-up, meaning that if these guys get into trouble, I go in after them. I hate going back to that, that _lie_, but I have to! Now jack me in!"

Sparks blinked a few times. Was this the sweet Danaë who'd come crying to him several days ago? Nope, he decided. Niobe had worn off on her at last. He jacked her in, sending her to the construct... and did a double-take when he saw her RSI.

Shoulder-length red hair, brown eyes... "My God." He grinned. She looked like herself now. Whatever Ghost had told her had done wonders for her self-esteem. Then he frowned. If she died, AK was going to have his head on a platter. A silver one. Complete with the obligatory apple in the mouth. Probably with some decorative lettuce and parsley sprigs, never mind that said produce, apple included, only existed now in the Matrix.

It was possible that Danaë didn't notice her altered appearance, though she more than likely didn't care about such trivialities as looks at the moment. She had a captain and a gunner to save, the woman she had come to see as a strict mother and the man she loved.

Thank all that was holy for little Sati and that information download on all forms of knife combat, as well as the switchblade. Danaë liked that switchblade and how cleanly it cut. She tucked it into her jeans pocket and grabbed two guns: Ghost's and a Springfield XD-9 (four-inch model). She wasn't the shooter Ghost was, but she could at least hit the target, if generally in a non-fatal area.

She considered taking Niobe's car, then remembered that it was, for some reason, a stick-shift car. She didn't drive stick.

"Send me in, Sparks."

---------

"Hey, bomb-boy."

Krsna jumped, banging his head against the top of his hiding spot. He peeked out to see Asmodeus.

Krsna didn't think, just reacted. Within seconds he had thrown himself at Asmodeus - not the brightest of moves. He had a good few inches on Asmodeus in height, but the Zionite outmassed him by quite a few kilos, all of which was solid muscle. The older man easily pinned Krsna to the ground. "Shut up and listen," Asmodeus snarled.

Krsna didn't really have much of a choice in the matter.

"There's a way you can save your crew's collective ass. It's risky, but it's the only way this thing will work. I've been wanting to get that bastard out of my hair for awhile, now get on your feet and haul your bomb-throwing ass down to the docks. _Move it!_"

Startled, Krsna found his feet moving, and soon he was jogging to keep up with Moody 'Modeus. Just what kind of game was he playing, anyway? Krsna had a feeling that the game ran deeper than he could have ever imagined.

Asmodeus held up a hand to halt the taller boy. "Nobody's supposed to know these scouts exist," he said quietly, pointing out some very small ships. "Locke started developing them when I was still a kid. I stumbled on the design sketches and kept close watch on 'em. These two are the first to be completed."

Krsna could only stare at the sleek little vehicles, and Asmodeus had a smug smile on his face. "Two-man scouts. One to go into the Matrix, one to operate. Not much in the way of weaponry, but these li'l buggers'll outrun even sentinels." Asmodeus walked out, stroking the side of one of the scouts. "The _Jordan_ and the _Jericho_. Beautiful."

Krsna wasn't as sure. They were smaller than even the _Logos,_ after all. Asmodeus practically had to drag him on board. It was _very_ small - the place where one person could jack in was located with the pilot's equipment; the galley was big enough for two, possibly three; there was only one room for the crew, which consisted of two hammocks and floor, and the engine room.

Small, but ideal for a two-man ship.

Small, but speedy.

Asmodeus could pilot and operate - assuming he had undergone the training, one was never sure with him - and Krsna was obviously there to be the presence in the Matrix. "Why me?" he asked Asmodeus, still upset over the near-arrest.

"Because I need you," was all Asmodeus would say, and even admitting THAT took half a day of pestering. They got the _Jericho_ out with a minimum of hassle, at least until they got to the gate, which wouldn't open. That was when the com opened up, demanding they return. Asmodeus simply shut it off, hacked into the system running the doors, and got them open himself.

Moody 'Modeus sure knew his way around a computer.

---------

Danaë was outside the building housing a restaurant owned by none other than the Merovingian. It was going to be difficult, breaking into the _château_ through there. She wasn't even sure how the locks worked, but dammit, she had to try!

"Miss Brennan, it's been awhile."

Danaë froze. _Brennan_... she'd not heard that name in a very long time. Not since she had been unplugged. What was more, she knew that voice. She had heard that voice several times, occasionally crying out in pain, occasionally confused, occasionally grateful.

The voice of the man she had once healed, who had protected her from men like himself who had been surprised at his apparent defection.

The voice of the man she knew only as Tobias.

Smiling, she turned to see her old patient. He wasn't smiling, but then, he never did. He nodded to her in greeting, however. "I take it you're going to infiltrate the dwelling of the Frenchman?"

"Yeah. He kidnapped my friends. I have to help."

"You can't do it on your own."

"I have to try," she told him.

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, but he controlled it. "I will help." Dana's face brightened. "You will!?"

He nodded. "I still owe you for saving my life, Miss Brennan."

Thus did "Dana" Brennan and "Tobias" Jones enter the building which housed _Le Vrai_.

---------

**_GG Crono 4:_**_ I know._

---------

_Music: _Zion_ by Fluke (_Matrix Reloaded _Soundtrack_)


	31. Yukio

**The Matrix: Legacy  
Thirty  
Yukio  
  
**

* * *

**  
**

Cain spared Wingless a quick glance as he rose to his feet and was startled by the sheer, naked _pain_ on the traitor's face. The human girl meant that much to him?

"_Stay away from Avalon, or I'll kill you myself!"_ Abel had snarled during the list of threats he'd presented to his cousin during the beating he'd delivered two days earlier. He had never seen Abel that _angry_ before. That protective behaviour; was it love? Cain already knew he loved Luna - Why else would he have taken on three Agent programs to protect her?

Cain shook his head, he was confusing himself.

The bare truth was that Cain had been given orders to protect the human girls Morgain Davidson and Betsabé Seferino until O'Malley's deal went through. Horizon had been captured, but Avalon had escaped and was still running outside.

First things first, he had to find Trinity's sister. Once she was safe - relatively speaking - in the _château_, he could go hunt down Horizon. It was more than likely that Wingless would insist on coming along, and refusing him would be very much a bad thing.

Cain looked again at Esau's kid, and a plan took root in his mind.

---------

The kid, a boy of perhaps twelve, had given his name as Yukio. Cain was fairly sure that Esau didn't even know that the kid existed. Interestingly enough, he carried himself like a king, rather than the bastard son of an Exiled program working as an assassin for an illegal mafia-like organisation run by one of the deadliest programs in existence, who ironically held the shell of a Frenchman. Or even the bastard son of an unknown father in general, he mentally amended, his eyes falling on another of those old, deadly programs. Seraph was serene, deadly, and wingless, just like Seth, though Seraph was the only one with the title of Wingless. Neither of the fallen ones spoke of how they had lost their wings; the subject was taboo in the _château_.

It occurred to Cain that there were a lot of hidden demons in the Exile's refuge.

His mind had wandered completely off-topic. Again. Idly he wondered if programs could be afflicted with ADD and if so, did he have it?

Seraph had sent Aisling back to the Oracle's, despite protests that she wanted to see Abel. He looked at Cain coolly, asking, "Can you smell Avalon?"

"Give me a second, Wingless," Cain replied irritably, "there are about a thousand scents I have to sort through. I'm not a machine."

Cain's eyes widened as he realised what he had just said, a horrified look spreading over his face. Seraph grasped Cain's shoulder reassuringly and uploaded a random memory to the werewolf that made Cain smiled. Yup, Wingless still had it, all right, he thought, watching Seraph's battle with the rebel Ballard.

_There_.

"I found her scent," Cain said as he set off towards the subway.

_Wait, subway? Shit, I hope she didn't run into the trainman. Ol' greedy guts'll drop her off in Limbo for sure!_ Cain increased his pace, not wanting to have to bargain with the disgusting man whose rancid stench offended his delicate nose even more than _Eau de Cujo_.

"If she is in Mobil Ave," Seraph said calmly, stopping him, "she will be safe there."

"Not with Charon and his grudge against Trinity," Cain replied. Seraph rolled his eyes. The Merovingian, the Trainman, One, Two, Esau, Red, and just about every Agent still in the Matrix had a grudge against the One's woman, especially the Agents.

"He will not harm Avalon. He would not dare risk the Frenchman's wrath," Seraph said.

Cain considered this. "Point. Fine, we'll get her later. Onto the club."

---------

A rebel had once told Cain to go to Hell. He had cheerfully replied that he did so on a regular basis. This actually wasn't true, as the Hel Club wasn't to his or Abel's tastes. However, he and his cousin often pulled coat check duty, as the garage was strictly the domain of the Q-Ball gang.

Tonight, however, Jacob and Esau had coat check duty.

Seraph wisely stayed out of sight, and Cain easily intimidated his way past the Q-Ball gang, though he did beat one of them around for trying to mess with Yukio. Cain didn't need the kid traumatised before he used him to blackmail his father into helping out.

"Stay behind me and don't say a word," he warned Yukio as the elevator went downstairs. Yukio glared daggers at him, but obeyed. The doors slid open and Cain stepped out, the boy just behind him.

Esau gave him an arch look. "Aren't you supposed to be baby-sitting?" he asked.

Cain gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Ran into some complications."

"What kind of complications?" Jacob demanded. The look on his face was not one of trust.

"Complications of the one man can't be in two places at once kind," he answered. "I need to borrow you, Esau."

"No way," Esau replied. "Ain't worth my job to go off on one of your wild goose chases."

Cain rolled his eyes. "It's not a wild goose chase. This is about that deal that the Frenchman really wants to go down, for some reason. The two girls have vanished. One ran, the other's been kidnapped."

Jacob arched an eyebrow. "Weren't you supposed to _prevent_ that from happening?"

"I didn't get there in time," Cain snarled in reply. "I think someone told 'em that O'Malley's pullin' out, so they're tryin' to keep him in."

"Leave us out of it," Esau told him. "Bother Tiger or Seth with it."

"I don't think you get it, Esau," Cain said with a smug look. "You're going to help."

Esau's eyes narrowed. "Make me."

"Yukio?"

The boy peeked out from behind Cain.

There was a clatter as Esau's HK G36K fell from nerveless fingers to strike the ground. Esau himself was staring at the boy as if he had seen a ghost. Jacob saw the resemblance, read the code, and whistled. "You're in deep shit if this gets out, buddy," he told his partner.

Esau agreed to help Cain out.

Not too surprising, given the circumstance.

---------

Jones produced a skeleton key and let himself and Miss Brennan into the _château_. The girl had grown up quite a bit since she had taken care of his multiple injuries. Funny, he couldn't remember ever having been injured before that time.

His shell had been killed a few times - first on that rooftop by Trinity herself, then minutes later by the One and a GE Mini-Gun - but he'd never been injured so bad that the shell needed to be repaired over a period of time. He supposed he was lucky that she had stumbled over him. Either way, she had saved his "life" and he did feel a sort of obligation to her for that.

And his old partner was here, somewhere. He could sense Brown nearby.

He spared a quick glance at the small, determined redhead. Interesting that she had been pulled out by the rebels. He had sensed the non-acceptance of the Matrix in her, of course, but they were generally interested in freeing hackers.

Of course, after the One had arrived on the scene, priorities had most likely changed dramatically. And now, four years later...

Something in his mind twinged, and Jones drew his Desert Eagle. He directed a scowl at the gun marking him as clearly as the suit he still wore, then rounded a corner directly into Brown - but Brown had changed.

The gun pointed at his chest was a Glock 17; the ex-Agent holding it wore black pants, a dark green shirt, and a black trench coat. He wasn't wearing sunglasses, which made Jones realise that he had never seen the colour of his partner's eyes in the years they'd worked together.

His eyes were green.

Jones blinked behind his shades, then said, "Miss Brennan, this is where we must part. Do what you came here to do."

The girl hesitated a moment, then obeyed him.


	32. Partner

**The Matrix: Legacy  
Thirty-One  
Partners**

**No, Not Like _That_.  
Perverts.  
  
**

* * *

**  
**

"Matthias," the former Agent Jones said.

"Tobias," the former Agent Brown replied.

The two Exiles stood still, watching each other. Tobias Jones was taller and thinner than Brown, but Brown had been working out since joining the Merovingian, and now his small, stocky frame was solid, if compact, muscle.

However, Jones had also made some modifications to his program, and unlike Matthias Brown, he wasn't worried about the body being killed.

How fortunate that they would not fight.

Once the girl was out of sight and ear shot, they both put their respective guns away. "It took you long enough, Tobias," Brown said.

Jones offered a shrug. "I just wanted to check on somebody."

"So, have you considered my offer?"

"I'm still thinking about it."

Brown arched an eyebrow. "And yet you're here."

Jones grinned. "You know me; I love being indecisive."

"When did this happen?"

"Sometime after we were separated."

"Ah. I always was the stable one."

"Yes... though compared to _him_, even _I_ was stable."

Both agents shuddered. _That_, more than anything else, had contributed to their being chosen for deletion: the fact that they had been the partners/subordinates of the Smith virus. They still were not sure why they had run from deletion.

But they had, and had split up to ensure that at least one of them would survive. Both had, Jones due to his encounter with a gun and a girl, Brown by accidentally running into the Hel Club. He hadn't even noticed the bullets the Merovingian's guard gang had shot at him, he'd just run until he realised where he was.

And now here they were.

"Why don't we talk this over in the werewolves' library?" Brown suggested.

"The werewolves'?" Jones queried.

Brown shrugged. "Cain and Abel have all but claimed it for themselves. They sleep in there; Until two years ago, they hadn't been in the rooms allotted to them."

"Odd."

"They know."

Jones considered this. "Yes, we should talk it over."

---------

"How the hell did I let you talk me into this?" Jacob demanded of Esau as they calmly walked into the main base of O'Malley's late employers.

"Because we're partners and I'd rather _not_ have my son near that idiot wolf, even if I just found out about him today," Esau replied.

Jacob rolled his eyes. "You're surprisingly family-oriented."

"Not really. Brat looks exactly like me; how long do you think it'd take the Frenchman to figure it out? Hell, _Cain_ figured it out!"

"Good point," Jacob replied, sighing. "I just don't understand all the fuss over one little girl."

"She's Wingless' woman, and we all remember what happened when Shyama miscarried." Jacob winced; he did indeed remember. That had been quite ugly. No one had ever seen Wingless that _angry_ before. It had surprised them all, really, Shyama's pregnancy. First of all she was a program, and no program had ever conceived before. It was forbidden, one of the rules the Exiles actually obeyed. Second of all, Wingless had admitted to being the father. Granted, Wingless and Shyama hadn't tried to have the other killed since the Invasion, but nobody had suspected that the two had become lovers, possibly not even the Frenchman.

Whoever had written the virus that caused the miscarriage had not been found, but they were responsible for the change of the _château_ from a haven for Exiled programs to the headquarters of a blatantly criminal organisation.

With all that in mind, Jacob increased his pace.

---------

Seth and Tiger were looking for Leon "Gunner" O'Malley. So far they were having no luck, but there were only so many places a human could hide. They had scanned all of the United States Quarter and the Mexican plaza, and were now looking around the edges of the City in the Canadian Sector. Seth didn't particularly like Canada, though he wouldn't tell Tiger why. Tiger, on the other hand, loved Canada, and it showed. He was practically bouncing in his excitement.

Seth shook his head; Tiger still acted the child at times. Was the vampire humming the Canadian National Anthem? Seth decided that he'd rather not know.

They didn't have _time_ to play Hide-n-Seek with O'Malley. "That's it," he growled. "I'm calling in some favours." Tiger looked at him curiously, then yelped as Seth grabbed him by the collar and dragged him into the backdoor system.

---------

Gabriel and Copycat had just finished re-establishing their network and building their new diner when a familiar program walked in from the back, dragging another with him.

"Find me Gunner O'Malley and find him fast," Seth said, letting go of his companion's shirt. Gabe and Kitty stared at him for a long moment "That means _move_!" Seth snapped. "I'm calling in that favour, wall-walker."

Gabe jumped, but sent Kitty out. "What do you want with Gunner?" Gabe demanded suspiciously.

"He's in the middle of a deal with the Merovingian. His presence is required for it."

Gabe had pulled up his specialised computer and already had a search running. "You realise we're clear after this?"

"For the moment. However... about your doppelganger girlfriend...." Gabe shot Seth a stricken look, and Seth smiled coldly.

---------

"C'mon," Seth said, grabbing Tiger by the collar again, "We're going to get O'Malley. And if I hear one strain of 'O Canada' again, I'll kill you." Seth was in a grumpy mood.

He... _hated..._ Canada!

---------

One and Two had not expected to run into the girl who had fought One ever again. They certainly had not expected to run into her in the halls of the _château_. Apparently, she had not expected to run into them, either, judging by her suddenly widening eyes when she almost ran into Two.

Her appearance had altered greatly, but One recognised her anyway; He'd been around Red and his shell changes for over a hundred years, after all. Both Twins levelled identical cold smirks at her, waiting for her to tremble again.

She did not. Her brown eyes narrowed, though there was some fear in them, it was controlled. "Get out of my way," she said softly.

"Make us," Two replied, somewhat childishly. The girl shrugged, reaching into her jeans pocket and withdrawing a switchblade knife.

The Twins exchanged cold smiles and drew their razors in a single, mirrored motion before Two circled around to get the girl between them. Two had enjoyed her fear as much as One had, and he wanted to experience it for himself, not through One's memory.

This fight they would enjoy.


	33. Kiss

**The Matrix: Legacy  
Thirty-Two  
Kiss  
  
**

* * *

"We're at broadcast depth," Asmodeus told Krsna.

"Good. Now jack me in," the Indian said softly. Asmodeus grinned and did so. He loved it; Krsna had no choice but to trust him. He loved this game, he really did. It was a dangerous game, true enough. But that made it all the more challenging, and one thing Asmodeus could not resist was a challenge.

He called up the construct and provided a lot of the sort of weaponry Krsna preferred. "YES! BOMBS!" the Indian yelled, starting to arm himself. Asmodeus smirked, then pressed a button.

Krsna paused as a bunch of small, silver spheres appeared. "What are these?"

"You ever seen _Star Wars_?" Asmodeus replied.

"Yeah."

"Thermal detonators. I wrote 'em myself."

"SCORE!" he yelled, grabbing three.

"Um, you'll only need one," Asmodeus said. "I haven't written the timer in yet. That sucker goes off, you and anything within fifty miles of you is gone."

Krsna nodded. "Last-ditch, then."

"More like for threats."

"Those too."

"You gonna take a gun?"

"Why?"

"'Modeus, when I shoot, the only thing safe is the person I'm aiming for."

"Ah."

---------

Avalon held Sati close as the subway zoomed underground, relieved that they had escaped. She coughed, softly at first, then harder and harder as the paroxysms racked her slender body. _Damn... gas!_ she thought, trying not to choke.

She shuddered under the intensity of each cough, starting to feel faint because she couldn't get enough air. What the hell had been in that? The young woman clutched onto the seat in front of her, trying to breath, trying to control her body.

A strong arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her gently against an equally strong chest. The spasms continued as long fingers brushed her throat delicately. The tickle lessened, then ceased. She coughed one last time and slumped weakly against the man, getting her breath back.

Sati's gas-induced slumber continued, uninterrupted by the coughing fit most likely triggered by the gas. At last, Avalon managed to look up at the man offering her his support.

Cain.

Her eyes widened in sudden fear, but she didn't pull back. He hadn't tried to hurt her - yet - but she didn't trust him. "I won't hurt you," he said softly, "partly because Abel will kill me, but also because I... well, I respect you now."

Avalon blinked. That was unexpected.

"I didn't think that... that you could handle him. Handle what he was, who he was." He shrugged. "I was wrong. But before you start thinking I'm on drugs, I still don't like you. I'm just on orders to bring you to the _château_."

'Hell no!' she signed angrily.

Cain explained to her in short terms what was going on, and she sullenly acquiesced. White-clad arms reached down and took Sati from beside Avalon. "She does not need to see the inside of the Frenchman's manor," Seraph said. Avalon could see that his jaw was set, his facial muscles taut with barely concealed anger.

Someone, apparently, was going to die.

Seraph disappeared with Sati, and Cain escorted Avalon back to the _château_. The last place in the world she really wanted to go. But... Abel was there. Maybe this visit wouldn't be so bad?

---------

Ghost's body burned with pain. He'd been here before, though his tormentor this time around was a brutish werewolf who smelled quite disgusting. And he knew what he was doing; every move was calculated to bring Ghost the maximum amount of pain without making him faint.

Ghost would not give this 'Cujo' the pleasure of hearing him scream. Stubbornly, he retained consciousness, enduring the pain by slipping into his meditative trance.

At least until he heard a voice he'd hoped never to hear again for the rest of his life. "That's enough for now, Cujo. Get lost."

"Yes, lady," the brute replied before he walked away, his heavy footsteps echoing oddly in the dungeon tunnels. Ghost opened his eyes to see Persephone, the wife of the Merovingian, whom he had kissed in order to save his captain.

Ghost neither liked nor trusted her.

She slipped into the cell, looking down at the man strapped to a table. Ghost looked a mess; he was battered, bruised, and bleeding from the various 'instruments' Cujo had used on him. Cujo acted the brute in many ways, but when it came to pain, he was an artist.

Persephone smiled. "We meet again, Ghost." Ghost remained silent, watching her warily. She looked down on him, running her hand up his bare chest. "My, how your fortunes have changed since our last meeting." Ghost tried to give her his version of one of Niobe's famous death glares, but the black eye ruined the effect.

Again that chilling smile. "Now, is that nice?"

Ghost tried to speak, coughed, and tried again. "'Nice' is not in my vocabulary at the moment," he told her, his expression one that would, under normal circumstances, make the recipient run for cover. Persephone was immune to such looks, especially from half-dead, half-naked men strapped to a table.

Her hand ran across his chest a second time, the nail hesitating before dragging itself in a deep cut. Ghost hissed in pain. "'Nice' hasn't been in mine for many years," Persephone mused as she caressed his uninjured abdomen. "Isn't that too bad?"

"Harpy," Ghost growled. Persephone shrugged. "Perhaps I am, at that. Who knows?" Her finger ran up his stomach, chest and neck, stopping at his lips. "I wonder... if your kiss has altered any in four years...."

Before Ghost had time to blink, her lips were pressed against his. He resisted as best he could with his arms and legs rendered useless, which seemed to surprise the relentless witch. However, she persisted, but Ghost did not give in.

At long last she withdrew. "Hmmm...," she mused softly. "Your love has changed... no longer unrequited... but no longer for _her_, either." A cold smiled. "Your kiss is not a virgin's kiss... your love has indeed changed, Zen Ghost."

She smiled, almost reminiscently. "You should feel proud. The kiss you gave me was better than the One's." Ghost did not reply, and Persephone turned on her heel, leaving him.

Soon after, Cujo's rancid odour returned, and the torture began once more.

---------

The girl's knife skills had definitely improved, One thought with some glee. This would be even more entertaining than the last fight. Even two on one, she was holding her own. She'd been hit twice, but she was ignoring the small cuts and focusing on her main objective. One approved. She seemed to realise that he and Two were toying with her, and she didn't like that.

Then, to One's surprise, she got past his defences and scored a long cut down his arm. The cut was nothing more than a temporary irritation, he could simply phase and...

He blinked and looked down at his arm as he returned to tangible form. His coat had not mended; his arm was still bleeding. His eyes narrowed, and he viewed the coding of her switchblade.

Iron.

Their only weakness.

How had she known?

One barely had time to warn his Twin, who leapt away from her next strike. Her threat level had risen without warning; now they were serious. She fought well, but with both of them no longer holding back, the battle was soon over, ending with her trapped and held in between them. One plucked the switchblade from her fingers and cast it aside as if it offended him; Two held her tightly against him and enjoyed the feeling of her trembling against him. Still she struggled; she obviously was not enjoying this.

Not that they cared.

Two repeated his brother's actions from his encounter with her, nuzzling her hair and whispering something vaguely threatening in her ear. Both Twins had an arm around her waist, effectively pinning her, and were standing close enough to each other that her legs were trapped in between theirs, cutting short any possibility of her kicking either of them in the groin. Over her head, they exchanged triumphant grins; they were having fun.

"You hurt us," One purred softly. "This intrigues us greatly." "Yes, it does," Two replied in the same tone, leaning down so that his lips were brushing her ear as he spoke. Both of them smirked as she shuddered.

They _were_ going to enjoy this.

---------

**_Funkless:_**_ Seth just doesn't like the Canadian Sector. It's a peeve. As for Seraph being Kris' grandfather… I will say 'No' to that right away. Rest assured, Krsna is 100 Indian._

_As far as the iron goes… please stop reading my mind. Thank you. :)  
_


	34. Rescue

**The Matrix: Legacy  
Thirty-Three  
Rescue  
  
**

* * *

**  
**

_She followed behind Morpheus and the Italian harpy, wishing that looks could kill. How _dare_ she ask to kiss him! She wasn't mad at him for complying, of course - they needed the Keymaker. No, her fury was solely with her, with that mockery of a woman. In her jealous anger, she didn't even pause to marvel at the sudden transition from restaurant kitchen to elegant manor, though as they passed the weaponry mounted on the wall her anger began to cool as she pictured using them on the woman leading them._

_They wound up in a library where two men were slacking off, watching a movie. The pair shot to their feet as they walked in, but the program Persephone raised her arms and said, "It's all right, boys, they're with me." Both relaxed a little, and she tried to figure out what was bothering her about those two. "These fellas work for my husband," Persephone explained as the two men looked at each other. "They do his dirty work. They're very good; very loyal. Aren't you, boys?"_

_"Yes, mistress," both replied obediently, looking somewhat amused. She wondered who held their loyalty more: the Frenchman, or this woman? _

_"They come from a much older version of the Matrix," Persephone went on, "but like so many back then, they caused more problems than they solved." Again the men traded looks, this time smirking in what was most likely some amusing memory of general mayhem. She wondered if they had been a version of Agents as the woman began to dig in her purse, saying, "My husband saved them because they're notoriously difficult to terminate." Her hand withdrew from the purse holding a pistol - more precisely, a COP .357. She eyed it speculatively, musing, "How many people keep silver bullets in their gun?" She smirked and aimed it at the smaller of the two men._

_He had enough time to look surprised before the COP fired. The shot caught him in the forehead, spattering the side of a book case with his blood and things she did not wish to think about. She was shocked; why had she shot him? What point was she trying to make? There was movement from the other man; Persephone pointed the small pistol at him, and he froze. "You can either run to the restaurant and tell my husband what I have done, or you can stay there and die."_

_Unsurprisingly, the man chose the first option, fleeing the library and his companion's dead body. "He's in the ladies' room!" Persephone called after him, then put the gun away. She strode to another bookcase and pulled one of the books down. A door opened in the wall, and she told them, "Hurry."_

Morgain's eyes snapped open.

She matched faces to names, and realised that she had just dreamed about Abel dying. Her stomach lurched, but she concentrated hard on not throwing up. What the hell had that dream been? She hadn't recognised anyone but Persephone, Cain, and Abel; she hadn't even recognised herself, or that jealous _anger._

But... was that dream prophetic? Or just a dream?

Whatever it was, she needed to make sure Abel was okay. She grabbed at an outfit, deciding to dress to startle. She would need the shock that sprang from her identical appearance to her lost older sister.

---------

Krsna was in full invisible mode, and he was running as fast as he could through the corridors of the _château. _Asmodeus had found him a hard-line a mile from the Merovingian's place and Krsna had run all the way to where the rest of his crew was, thankful that he could run nearly all day without tiring much. He had to save them.

As he ran, he managed to collide with a young woman with short, black hair, dressed in black vinyl. Quickly, he made himself visible so as not to freak her out entirely. His eyes widened as he looked at her. "T-_trinity_!?" he exclaimed in shock.

Morgain glared icy blue daggers at the young man, conveniently forgetting that she had dressed this way specifically to get that sort of reaction, then her eyes widened as she saw the strange aura surrounding him. It was blue... but intertwined with it were threads of gold. She'd seen an aura somewhat like that before... on Davis. Only his had been green intertwined with silver... until the last time she had seen him, when the green had changed to blue. What did it mean? She didn't understand these auras.

She didn't have much time to ponder this as a frightened cry sounded down the halls, and the man paled. "Danaë," he whispered, then ran off after the noise. Morgain followed, intrigued. He wasn't one of the Merovingian's goons, that was for sure.

Danaë cried out, partly in fear, partly in pain as one of the Twins ran his razor along her neck, cutting a thin, shallow line near her jugular vein. She didn't move, for fear he'd slip and kill her accidentally. It wasn't her life she feared for - they'd made it fairly obvious that they didn't want her dead.

They wanted to play.

Unfortunately for her, their idea of playing involved pain on her part. They liked her, though Danaë didn't know if that was good or bad...

The razor was yanked away from her neck, then one of the Twins was pulled away. "What?" the other Twin asked before something clad in black crashed into him, tearing him away from Danaë.

She sprang into action, diving for her knife, but the fight was over. _Something_ grabbed onto the twin's dreadlocked hair and slammed their heads together with enough strength to knock them unconscious. Then, before Dana's startled eyes, Krsna shimmered into view.

"Danaë, you okay?" he asked, his eyes wide with concern. She nodded. "Good. He's keeping Ghost in the dungeon. I'll get Niobe if you get Ghost."

"Right," Danaë answered. Krsna hugged her close and ruffled her hair, then ran off, leaving Danaë with a woman - with Trinity!?

Trinity, if that was who she was, motioned for Danaë to follow her, and they moved along the halls away from Krsna. Eventually, they came to a library, where Trinity pulled on a book, triggering a hidden door. Danaë blinked, looking at her. Trinity motioned for Danaë to precede her.

Cujo's ears perked. Two people were coming. He grinned darkly. More people to torment, how fun! It was his lucky day. They were trying to be silent, but he could hear their footsteps. But what to do? Continue his torture of the Ghost, or lie in wait? Cujo was hard-pressed to make a decision.

He looked down at the half-conscious human, and decided to ambush the newcomers instead. He was strong enough to handle two at once.

Danaë didn't see it coming. She was so worried about Ghost, she forgot to make sure the way was clear and wound up being thrown across the room with a shriek when a large hand struck her across the chest. She hit the wall hard and fell to the floor with a moan.

Alerted by Danaë 's cry and sudden flight, the other girl was able to duck under Cujo's next strike and dive forward, away from him and near Danaë, whom she helped to her feet.

"What do we do?" Danaë asked. Trinity said nothing, watching Cujo warily. She made a hand motion, then attacked Cujo, drawing a single Beretta Cheetah and firing at him. He simply took the shots and punched her hard in the gut, dropping the other woman like a rock.

Danaë realised that he had to be a werewolf or a vampire and fumbled for Ghost's gun, but Cujo was faster. By the time she had it in hand he was there, massive hand on her wrist and pointing the gun down. He grinned at her and squeezed. Hard.

Danaë clenched her teeth and kept hold of the gun, so he shrugged and made a quick motion with his hand. She screamed and let go as her wrist was broken, then his hand was around her neck, pinning her to the wall. "His scent is all over you," Cujo said with a dark grin as a knife appeared seemingly out of nowhere in his hand. "I think I'm going to enjoy this..."

With a flick of the knife, he'd sliced up her green shirt, revealing the pale skin between her breasts. He made sure that Ghost had a good view of his actions, as mental torment was almost as fun as physical.

There was a sudden slam as the Ghost tried to pull free of his restraints. Cujo could see his fury, his rage at what was being done to his woman, which made Cujo grin all the more. Physical and mental torture simultaneously, how fun!

Ghost growled as he fought his restraints. He knew the werewolf was only doing this to torture him in another form, but that only made him angrier.

There was a gentle touch on his arm, and he turned his head to see...

"Avalon," he said, surprised. There was gratitude in her eyes at his correct identification of her, then she ducked her head to focus on the shackle binding his arm to the table, where she was picking the lock.

Dana's frightened whimpers were driving logic from his mind. Ghost fought the primal instinct; he would need his head clear to fight when he was this injured. His arm was free. "Give me my gun," he told Avalon softly. She blinked, then crept to where his gun had landed, pressing it into his hand. As she worked on the other bindings, he tried to aim. His emotion and his weakened body were making it hard, and he had to be careful with this shot.

As Cujo ran the knife along her arm, he found his shot and took it. The bullet hit him in the back of the head, dropping the werewolf. Danaë slumped to the ground, her eyes wide, her arms holding her shirt together to preserve her modesty.

Avalon finished with the locks and helped Ghost to Dana's side, where she latched onto him and buried her face in his shoulder. He winced a bit as the cloth of her jacket and ruined shirt rubbed against his wounds, but he wrapped his arms around her regardless. Then he pulled back to look at her altered appearance and smiled.

"You look like yourself."

She nodded, then said, "We have to hurry. Kris is going to get Niobe."

Ghost blinked as Danaë helped him upright. "Krsna's in the Matrix? How?"

"I don't know. He didn't explain."

Ghost frowned. "Something is going on here. I get the feeling that someone is playing games with us." Avalon signed something, and he nodded. "I agree. We must hurry and leave this place."

Danaë looked at her curiously, realising at last that the vinyl-clad young woman was not Trinity and therefore had to be Trinity's younger sister. "Let's go, then."

---------

Seth paused with his hand on the knob of the room Gabriel had found O'Malley in. "Something's wrong," he said quietly. "I can feel it."

Tiger, more serious now that the sugar from the pint of Moose Tracks ice cream had worn off, looked up at his partner. "What is it?"

"Like we're being watched...." Seth's eyes widened as he read the code. "Tiger, run! Now!" He pushed the startled vampire, who automatically got his feet moving. He didn't get far.

A door opened behind him, and Tiger yelled in surprise as an arrow slammed into his back. A wooden arrow. He went down hard. "Tiger!" Seth yelled, running to the younger program. No answer, the vampire was dead.

Seth turned again in time to see the bat swinging for his head -

****


	35. Betrayed

**The Matrix: Legacy  
Thirty-Four  
Betrayed**

**

* * *

**

There was a reason as to why Krsna had sent Danaë to where Cujo undoubtedly was. It was much safer for her to be down there than to be where he was going. Krsna wasn't invisible at the moment, knowing he would need every last shred of his ability when the time came. He knew precisely where Niobe was being held: in the Merovingian's office.

"Dear God, help me," he muttered.

He could hear approaching footsteps and immediately vanished from sight; luckily, the approaching party was the vampire Vlad, not one of the werewolves. Krsna wasn't sure if a werewolf would have been able to track his scent, or even if he left one in this form. He didn't much like invisibility, though; he couldn't even see himself.

Once Vlad was gone, he reappeared and kept going for the office. Luckily, it was unguarded. Suspecting a trap, Krsna vanished once more and slid into the office. He winced as his eyes fell upon Niobe. She was beaten and unconscious; undoubtedly she wasn't very popular around here.

In the camera room, where the two former Agents had moved, Brown arched an eyebrow at the young man prowling in the Merovingian's office. "How bold," he said, amused.

Jones frowned. "I know him."

"We both do," Brown replied, almost cheerfully, "though he was much younger when we discovered that he existed."

"Aatmik's grandson, eh?"

"Alive, well, fully grown, and right where the Frenchman has been trying to get him." The pair watched the young man free Niobe and hoist her gently in his arms.

"What sort of game are you playing, Matthias?"

"I'm not the mastermind of this game, Tobias."

---------

Interestingly enough, Jacob and Esau had no problems in the enemy base, though they did leave a trail of bodies in their wake.

Subtlety was not exactly their strong point.

It was Jacob who found the girl, roughly bound, tightly gagged, and carelessly tossed into a tiny prison cell. This infuriated him, as he had a soft spot for women in general and teachers in particular. Choosing not to bother with the locks, he grabbed hold of the barred door, applied a certain amount of pressure combined with his strength, and simply pulled the door off its lock and hinges.

The young woman looked up with fear in her eyes, but Esau was already there, cutting her loose and turning on the charm. Jacob shrugged as he dropped the door. "Let's go, Esau. Someone's bound to trip an alarm, and the longer we take, the better the chance that Wingless will come after us."

Esau nodded, pulling Wingless' woman to her feet. She stumbled, as her circulation hadn't entirely returned. Annoyance flashed across Esau's face, but before he could open his mouth, Jacob had her in his arms, tossing his gun to Esau. "Move it, shorty."

Esau bared his teeth at his partner, and they left quickly.

Jacob could feel the girl trembling against his chest, and his eyes narrowed as he imagined all the tortures he would inflict upon her former captors. Recognising the look, Esau reproved, "Ah-ah-ah, Wingless gets first dibs."

Jacob merely snorted, indicating that Wingless had better move on swift feet if he wanted to get to the survivors first.

---------

Asmodeus stared at the screen. "Shit... what's that bastard D'Artagnan playing at?" He grabbed for his communications gear and dialled in a number.

"Orion? We're running low on time."

"I'm on it. What do you need?"

"Where are you?"

"Where he had those two ambushed. How the bastard pulled it off, I don't know."

"Leave Tiger's body near O'Malley. Don't bother to remove the arrow."

"What the fuck!?"

"Trust me. O'Malley is an intelligent man. He'll figure it out."

"You better hope he will, because I sure as hell don't."

"He will."

---------

Morgain and Danaë were both supporting the injured Ghost, carefully taking him upstairs. Ghost was fairly quiet during the entire process, though he was still clutching his gun and the knuckles of that hand were white.

The girls tried to be quiet, but let's face it, dragging a full-grown, injured man upstairs is not the quietest task in the world. Still, they did their best. It was unfortunately not good enough, as two werewolves were waiting for them when they made it to the top: Cain and Abel. Danaë, unaware of the near-relationship between Morgain and Abel, wasn't sure why girl and man paled considerably when they saw each other.

The trio was ushered into the weapons hallway, Cain gloating, Abel silent. Danaë couldn't help but notice that the smaller werewolf was being oddly gentle around the vinyl-clad woman. Cain made a point of leaving her to his smaller cousin, which she also found odd.

Ghost noticed the expression on her face and explained their situation softly. It wasn't soft enough, as Cain overheard and dealt Ghost a sharp blow to the head that nearly toppled poor Danaë. Abel noticed and said something in a language Danaë didn't know; judging from the vitriolic tone, she assumed it to be a sharp reprimand.

He had actually told Cain not to damage the merch.

---------

It was extremely bad luck that Krsna's invisibility, strained as it was by hiding both him and Niobe, chose to shut down the moment he walked straight into the ambush. He heard a semi-_pop_, looked down and realised he could see Niobe, then looked up and realised there was a gun pointed at her head, held by a large, red-haired man.

A smirking Merovingian stood just behind the man. "At last we meet, grandson of Shyama," he said smugly. Krsna's lips drew back, exposing his teeth as he snarled ferally at the Frenchman who had pushed him to leave the home he loved.

Red knew that snarl well. He himself had given it to the Merovingian a few times before the end of the Fourth Cycle of the Matrix and his subsequent betrayal of the human race. Red flinched at that thought, then sternly reminded himself he was a program now, a full program, no longer human.

Surprisingly, the Frenchman did not gloat, merely ordered Red to "escort" Krsna and his captain to the foyer. "Ze ozer guests will be zere," he added.

_Ah, so Frenchie wants to _wait_ before he gloats... how odd, _Red thought as he did as ordered.

The other captives came into view - Avalon, Ghost, and a little red-haired girl who looked exactly like....

Red's gun fell from numb fingers at a girl who was the spitting image of his mother, Erin Brennan. _No fucking way...._

Ghost, noticing Red's stunned expression, noted the facial similarities between the huge redhead and the girl now holding him upright and blinked. The redhead was a human? No, though he certainly recognised Danaë somehow, she didn't recognise him.

Far away in a room with cameras, a pair of ex-Agents were watching this and laughing their heads off.

Once Red recovered from shock and retrieved his gun, the prisoners were herded together, excepting Avalon, who was under solo guard by Abel. The Merovingian smirked, opened his mouth....

And the double doors flew open.

Red turned in time to catch the blood-covered vampire who had just come in.

Tiger.


End file.
